The Bigger Picture

Following the report that HPV vaccination of teenage girls may reduce the incidence of cervical cancer by around 90%, Professor Sir Mel Greaves discusses the future of cancer prevention.

Our need to understand the cause or reason for dramatic, natural events is a very ancient and uniquely human urge. Professor Sir Mel Greaves explores the dilemma between our instinctive desire for simple, singular explanations when science is inherently uncertain and complex.

What, you might ask, could possibly connect Percival Potts, surgeon at St Bartholomew’s hospital in the 1770s, with a pathologist a hundred years ago? The answer is that it is something to do with soot, sweat and scrotums. And chimneys.

Professor Sir Mel Greaves ponders 'experiments of nature' - from the COVID-19 pandemic to the birth of identical twins - and argues that they can give us vital clues to the causes of cancer.

Professor Sir Mel Greaves discusses the importance of the human microbiome for health and how it could be harnessed to help improve outcomes in cancer.

The global COVID-19 pandemic has ground the world as we know it to a halt – and cancer research is no exception. ICR researcher Professor Udai Banerji reflects on this opportunity to take stock of the challenges faced in cancer research, and restart with ambitious new plans.

Leading childhood leukaemia researcher Professor Sir Mel Greaves, discusses the difficulties of avoiding blame and responsibility when it comes to cancer.

Professor Nandita de Souza, Professor of Translational Imaging at the ICR, argues that Deep Mind-style artificial intelligence is set to have a huge impact on the imaging technologies used to diagnose, monitor and treat cancer.

Royal Medal winner Professor Mel Greaves argues that survival traits evolved by the likes of the tardigrade, or water bear, also keep cancer cells alive.

For the last decade, Dr Nathan Brown has led the In Silico Medicinal Chemistry Team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London. Today, on his last day at the ICR, he writes about the current use of computer algorithms in the ongoing quest to design cancer drugs more efficiently.

Professor Mel Greaves, winner this week of a Royal Society Royal Medal for outstanding research, looks back over his career and considers what has made him tick as a scientist.

Dr Christopher Tape, a Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the ICR, ponders the limitations of a reductionist approach in cancer biology and looks at how new approaches might provide for a more holistic view of how tumours behave.

Are some genes more essential for cells to survive than others? Why is the recently discovered list of ‘essential’ genes important for developing new treatments for cancer? Dr Chris Lord, leader of the Gene Function Team at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, looks at the evidence.

US President Barack Obama recently threw down the gauntlet of curing cancer ‘once and for all’. Professor Mel Greaves discusses whether, and how, this formidable challenge can be achieved.

Professor Nandita deSouza discusses the value of imaging in predicting the evolution of cancer in the body - and what the latest developments in this field could mean for the future of treatment.

Is cancer just down to bad luck or do the environment and inherited factors dictate whether we will develop the disease? Leading ICR researcher Professor Mel Greaves looks at the evidence.

In his first post for The Bigger Picture, Professor Mel Greaves offers insights into the evolution of cancer defence mechanisms in large animals – and what these might mean for human cancers.