We regularly invite applications from UK melanoma researchers. Thanks to your donations, we have funded investigators who work as melanoma clinicians, dermatologists, advanced non-medical practitioners, surgeons, scientists, pathologists and health economists.
Our Scientific Committee, led by Professor Samra Turajlic, evaluates the proposals and makes recommendations for the research awards. Our current research projects are listed below.
In 2023 we awarded grants to four new research projects for patient benefit. Here are details about these current projects
Dr Amanda Fitzpatrick, Consultant Medical Oncologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer (KHP Comprehensive Cancer Centre Career Development and Innovation Award), Guy’s Hospital and King’s College London
Dr Yin Wu, Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist and Honorary Consultant Medical Oncologist, King’s College London and Guy’s Hospital
Professor Sophia Karagiannis
Professor Sean Whittaker
Dr Zena Willsmore
01/09/23
1 year
Immunotherapies have revolutionised the treatment of advanced melanoma. These therapies work by stimulating the body’s natural defence (immune system) to attack and kill cancer cells. While in some patients this treatment is effective, many patients do not benefit. Moreover, some patients experience a phenomenon, called “pseudo-progression”, where tumours grow before shrinking.
Pseudo-progression is thought to reflect an increased flow of cancer-targeting immune cells into the tumour before they then attack and kill the tumour. It presents a problem for doctors and patients and it’s hard to know whether to stop treatment with immunotherapy when scans show cancer progression or continue because of the small possibility that it is pseudo-progression.
Current guidelines recommend continuing immunotherapy and performing a second scan after 4-8 weeks to confirm if a patient has true progression or pseudo-progression. However, continuing treatment when a patient has true progression risks them experiencing unnecessary side effects of immunotherapy treatment and delays alternative treatment with potentially more effective drugs .
This project wants to identify early changes in the way the body responds to immunotherapy to help doctors know when patients have true progression versus pseudo-progression.
Carry out ctDNA analysis and perform TCR sequencing on blood samples. This data will then be analysed, and a design proposal will be made to support an application to a research funding grant to extend the research to a larger group of patients.
We are very grateful for this generous grant from Melanoma Focus which will enable to us to apply state-of-the-art experimental techniques to address the very important clinical question of how to differentiate pseudo-progression from true progression. The results of our pilot study will lay the foundation for a larger confirmatory study which we hope may ultimately spare many patients unnecessary toxicities of immunotherapy and delays in access to more effective therapies.
Dr Rebecca Lee, Senior clinical lecturer medical oncology and Wellcome early career fellow, University of Manchester/The Francis Crick/University College London
Professor Paul Lorigan, Consultant Medical Oncologist in Melanoma and Professor of Cancer Cell biology, University of Manchester
Dr Ann Tivey, NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow (Medical Oncology)
Dr Safwan Adam, Consultant Endocrinologist (with a special interest in cardiovascular disease risk)
Professor Christopher Miller, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, NIHR Advanced Fellow and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist, University of Manchester
Dr James Tollitt, Consultant Renal Physician/Honorary Senior Lecturer in Cardiovascular Sciences
Dr Alexander Oldroyd, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer (Rheumatologist), University of Manchester
Dr Fabio Gomes, Consultant Medical Oncologist with special interest in Oncogeriatrics
Dr Cassandra Ng, Consultant Oncogeriatrician, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Arpana Verma, Clinical Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology, University of Manchester
Dr Hui Guo, senior lecturer in Biostatistics at the Centre for Biostatistics, University of Manchester.
Dr Tim Cooksley, Consultant in Acute Oncology, The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
Q3 2023
6 years (3 years of Melanoma Focus funding)
Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) enhance the immune system’s ability to attack and kill cancer cells. This treatment has proved very effective and so there is a growing population of patients with melanoma expected to live for many years after treatment with ICIs. Evidence regarding long-term effects of these treatments is limited.
The Immune-Tox study will look at long-term effects from ICIs in patients with melanoma. Patients who received adjuvant treatment with an ICI, i.e., after having had their melanoma surgically removed, will be recruited to the study. The patients will be monitored for several years, and they will be compared to patients who did not receive ICIs to look at any difference in any medical conditions, particularly cardiac, as well as looking at their quality of life and energy/tiredness levels. This information will allow doctors and patients to discuss the risks and benefits of ICIs before the treatment is started, it will also allow for better monitoring, prevention and management of side effects that may appear later on after treatment.
The main aim of the project is to look at the long-term side effects of adjuvant immune-check point inhibitor treatment in melanoma patients and compare them to patients who did not receive treatment. Knowing how these long-term side effects can affect patients will allow more informed decision making when prescribing adjuvant ICI treatment and potentially improve long-term quality of life of patients with melanoma.
Set up the study, including recruiting personnel and setting up the database where the information will be stored. The funding will support the first 3 years of the running of the study which after set-up will cover recruiting patients and preliminary data collection.
NIHR badging will also be sought using the Melanoma Focus funding.
There is a commitment to collaborate on late-effects of immunotherapy research with the Melanoma Focus funded project LATENT (see below).
“We are very grateful for the funding from Melanoma Focus for this study. It will provide the information we need to ensure that patients with melanoma have the best possible management throughout their cancer journey. It is important that we better understand the long-term impact of treatment so we can tailor our follow up management to improve outcomes for patients.”
Dr Kate Young, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden Hospital, London
Dr Aislinn Macklin-Doherty, Post-doctoral clinical research fellow, Royal Marsden Hospital, London
Professor James Larkin, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Royal Marsden Hospital, London
Dr Anna Olsson-Brown, Consultant Medical Oncologist, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, Liverpool
Dr Rebecca Lee, Senior clinical lecturer medical oncology and Wellcome early career fellow, University of Manchester/The Francis Crick/University College London
01/09/2023
1 year
Enormous advances in melanoma treatments have been made in the last decade, with the introduction of new immunotherapy and targeted treatments. This has revolutionised survival and there are now a growing number of people treated for advanced melanoma living many years after their diagnoses. However, there is a lack of knowledge about how these treatments affect people in the long-term, once their cancer is controlled.
This study will use different methods to collect and analyse data and address this gap in knowledge. The overall objective would be to publish results of these late-effect frequencies and risk factors discovered in this study in order to work towards setting up a larger multi-centre study investigating both medically reported and patient-reported late effects.
Support a clinical research fellow to carry out the data collection and analysis to fulfil the different aims of the project.
There is a commitment to collaborate on late-effects of immunotherapy research with the Melanoma Focus funded project Immuno-tox (see above).
“This generous grant from Melanoma Focus will enable our research fellow to collect data from 3 leading cancer centres and information from patients themselves to improve our understanding of the long-term side effects and impact of immunotherapy treatment, to help us design and plan better follow up and survivorship services for our patients in the future.”
Dr Khaylen Mistry, Academic Clinical Fellow, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital/University of East Anglia
Dr Dimitrios Karponis,Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia
Dr Mitesh Patel,Kings College Hospital, London
Mr John Ragan,Patient representative, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital
Dr Oliver Kennedy,The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester and University of Manchester
Professor Paul Lorigan,The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester and University of Manchester
Professor Nick Levell, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia
Associate Professor Zoe Venables, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia and National Disease Registration Service, NHS Digital, Leeds, UK
01/08/2023
1 year
Rapid improvements in melanoma care over the last 10 years, due to targeted and immunotherapy treatments, have influenced the type of research that is being carried out for melanoma. It is important to ensure research benefits patients and so this project plans to interview patients across the UK to find out their views.
Patients with melanoma diagnosed in the past ten years will be interviewed to identify and prioritise unanswered research questions. Researchers will recruit a mix of participants of different gender, age, ethnicity, deprivation, disability, geographical region and tumour stage so all groups are represented.
The main topics to be discussed during interviews are;
What are interesting and important areas to research regarding:
(1) melanoma overall
(2) how common is melanoma, risk factors for getting melanoma, to what degree it may be inherited and how it is diagnosed
(3) treatment, survival, follow up and whether other diseases and their treatments affect risk of getting melanoma and response to melanoma treatment.
To identify unanswered research questions for people with melanoma which will result in research that meets patient’s needs.
Reimburse patients for their time during interviews and provide access to transcription software.
“Support and funding from Melanoma Focus has been invaluable to recruit and thank patients for giving their time. This research will allow us to better understand how we can prioritise future melanoma research to answer questions that are important to patients.”
