Cambridge and Kolkata breast cancer researchers exchange ideas

A multi-professional group of six members of the CRUK RadNet Cambridge team, led by Prof Charlotte Coles and the Cambridge Precision Breast Cancer Institute, led by Prof Jean Abraham, visited Tata Medical Center (TMC) in Kolkata to meet with Dr Sanjoy Chatterjee and his colleagues from the Department of Oncology and the Tata Translational Cancer Research Center (TTCRC).

This meeting was catalysed by the on-going Lancet Breast Cancer Commission led by Prof Coles.

The aim of the visit was to exchange knowledge on the operational and scientific aspects of a translational research programme, and to explore collaboration between the centres, which would increase the diversity of patient data contributing to both research programmes.

The Cambridge team shared their rich experience in research including translational and radiomic research. They detailed their multi-omics research plans in solid tumours, which are enabled by collaboration across many different departments.

The team explained that they receive funding from Cancer Research UK through their RadNet project, and they developed one of UK’s first personalised treatment research programmes in breast cancer.

The TMC team shared their clinical trial portfolio including their success in developing a multi-institutional CHAVI repository for collaborative research.

TMC are keen to establish one of the first precision breast cancer programmes in India.

Through three days of discussion, the teams were able to lay out the structure of an over-arching strategy that would allow complementary multi-omic tumour boards to be established in both centres and enable implementation of personalised patient management plans.

In addition, TMC and the Precision Breast Cancer Institute team discussed strategies to mentor research nurses and co-ordination staff.

The RadNet Cambridge team also discussed collaboration in informatics and machine learning in radiotherapy, and work will commence to establish TMC as the first international site to join the Hamlet.rt radiomics study, led by Dr Raj Jena.

TMC also shares an interest in patient reported outcome measures (PROM) research, and a proposal to collaborate on the development of PROMs to assess both physical and psychological morbidity in breast cancer patients was discussed.

We are very grateful to Prof Coles and her colleagues for their time and for sharing of knowledge and ideas during their visit. We look forward to ongoing collaborations between our two centres.