A century of achievement in cancer research
The ICR Global Foundation’s current funding priority, the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), is one of the world’s oldest cancer research institutions. The ICR’s discoveries have fuelled its own research while driving discoveries at other institutions around the world.
The breadth and excellence of the ICR’s work over the last 100 years are demonstrated by its exceptional record of successes, including:
1910 – The ICR founds a specialist radiotherapy department – one of the first in the world
1930s – The ICR identifies the potential link between smoking and lung cancer, which was subsequently confirmed.
1950s – The ICR develops the drugs busulphan, chlorambucil and melphalan – all of them outstandingly successful in treating cancer and which are still used today.
1960s – ICR scientists show that carcinogens act by damaging DNA, leading to the dramatic discovery that the basic cause of cancer is a DNA malfunction.
1970s – The ICR develops carboplatin, the use of which becomes the global standard of care for patients with a wide range of solid tumors, and leads to the high cure rate for testicular cancer.
1995 – The ICR identifies the breast cancer gene BRCA2, mutations in which predispose carriers to high risk of breast cancer. The finding provides the opportunity to initiate breast cancer prevention studies.
2000 – ICR scientists initiate the Cancer Genome Project with the aim of identifying genes that have relevance to particular cancers. The project, being conducted at the Wellcome Trust’s Sanger Institute, has so far discovered over 350 genes associated with cancer.
2004-2008 – ICR scientists discover two drug development candidates, on average, per year, an achievement unmatched anywhere in the world. Five of these have reached late stage clinical development.
2008 - The ICR was ranked first among academic research centers (ahead of Oxford, Cambridge and all other UK universities) by The Times Higher Education’s authoritative interpretation of the 2008 RAE, the UK government’s most recent peer review analysis of research from UK universities.
