And all of us want to see cancer detected and treated as early as possible, for better outcomes for patients and those closest to them.

That’s where the Li Ka Shing Early Cancer Institute (ECI) comes in. The ECI opened in September 2022 and was the first physical institute in the UK dedicated to early cancer. Researchers at the Institute are focusing on cancers that are hard to treat, such as lung, oesophageal and liver cancers, and acute myeloid leukaemia. Detection and treatment methods have changed very little for these types of cancer over the past few years, and outcomes are often poor. Detecting and treating cancer earlier will dramatically increase survival rates and reduce healthcare costs across all tumour types.

The Institute, located on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, has gathered as many as 120 scientists — from biologists and clinicians to engineers, physicists and social sciences — together under one roof. By working across disciplines to understand the fundamental biology of how cancer develops and evolves, these researchers are devising new methods for detecting, treating — even preventing — cancer early and translating these into clinical practice. For example, they have used the power of theoretical physics approaches to identify blood cancer years before the patient has symptoms, while biology and chemical engineering experts have collaborated to develop a way to detect and destroy early lung cancer.

The Institute’s director, Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald, has blazed new trails with the Cytosponge, or capsule sponge — a test that can identify ten times more heartburn patients with Barrett’s oesophagus, a pre-cursor to oesophageal cancer — which aims to catch the disease when it is easier to treat, thus helping more people survive.

This kind of innovation — and the powerhouse team behind it — is why the ECI’s groundbreaking work has been the magnet and inspiration for legacy giving.

An inspirational new Institute, vital research and enormous impact

An anonymous legacy gift has helped the ECI invest in facility and equipment upgrades to enable cutting-edge science. The estate of the private donor bequeathed £1M to the University of Cambridge’s Department of Oncology, which has been directed to the new Institute.

“A gift like this, which is unrestricted, enables us to invest in state-of-the-art equipment to do research that is in step with the latest technologies available and to create an environment that will attract top-notch researchers,” said Professor Fitzgerald. "Cutting-edge research facilities are vital in helping our researchers develop pioneering early cancer detection innovations and take these from bench to bedside with even greater speed and focus, resulting in fewer cancer-related deaths worldwide."

For example, part of this generous legacy gift completed essential upgrades to the ECI’s tissue culture facilities. One way in which Institute researchers use tissue culture facilities is to grow a type of cancer model. Clinicians obtain tissue samples from patients with cancer or premalignant conditions during biopsies or other procedures and these are then brought to ECI’s laboratories, where they are carefully processed so that the cells from the patients can be grown in incubators — a process referred to by researchers as tissue culture. As well as the standard 2D models, the team are developing innovative 3D cultures of a range of pre-cancers to better understand the early changes that happen both inside cells and in their environment that can contribute to cancer formation. A better understanding of these early changes should improve our ability to detect and treat these cancers at an earlier stage.

And that’s just the start.

Flexible donations such as this gift are incredibly useful for responding to needs as they arise, addressing anything from supporting larger-scale collaborative projects across the Institute to assisting new group leaders in setting up research groups.

Fuelled by family: targeted giving with an emotional backstory

The extraordinary power of philanthropic giving is partly in its capacity to inspire others to give. But legacy donor Shirley English needed no further inspiration than her late brother Paul Lonnen’s experience with invasive treatment for oesophageal cancer. Although her family had always been eager to support cancer research, she specifically wanted to support early research into oesophageal cancer in memory of Paul. Commenting that, “The more I can help the work of the Early Cancer Institute, the better”, Shirley was gratified that the Institute could accept giving that was allocated for a specific area of cancer research. The Cytosponge is an area of particular interest for Shirley, who would love to see more GPs aware of this leap forward and proactively educating their patients about it.

Ultimately, gifts like Shirley’s are helping to change the narrative around cancer research, which has traditionally focussed on later-stage disease and finding new therapies. Yet late-stage disease is genetically more complex and harder to treat, with more side effects. If we can understand the biology of how cancers develop, why some people get cancer and some don’t, and how to precisely identify early cancers, we can make a huge impact.

Our wider goals around cancer research — to strengthen Cambridge as a world leader, to grow our talent pool and partnerships with industry, and to influence policy and thought leadership — are nothing if not ambitious. But then Cambridge is used to leading the world in solutions, inventions and applications across a vast range of endeavours that continue to improve lives globally.