Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge is the most ambitious cancer research grant in the world.

A multi-disciplinary team of scientists led by the University of Surrey and National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in London has been shortlisted to the final stages of Cancer Research UK's Grand Challenge.

The team has acquired a chance of securing £20m of global grants to help improve early diagnosis rates of cancer. 

The team, made up by researchers from University of Surrey, NPL, Maastricht University, University of Stirling, University of Cambridge and industry experts from Microsoft Research, and Maastro Clinic Center, have proposed a novel method to identify early signs cancers by analysing people’s consumer and behavioural habits.

Early symptoms of cancer are often mistaken for other health ailments and patients often unknowingly self-manage symptoms before seeking medical advice. 

Working with cancer patients and survivors, as well as experts from across a number of fields including cancer health, psychology, 5G and nutrition, researchers will examine early symptoms of cancer and how self-management of symptoms impacts upon patients behavioural and consumer routines.

If successful, the team will develop software tools to encourage individuals to seek medical care if their behavioural habits (such as shopping) match the profile of someone with early signs of cancer.

The team will receive seed-funding of up to £30,000 to draft their full research proposal, and the winning proposal will be announced in autumn 2018.

The Grand Challenge award aims to revolutionise how we diagnose, prevent and treat cancer by providing international multi-disciplinary teams the freedom to try novel approaches, at scale, in the pursuit of life changing discoveries.