Prestigious fellowship goes to Southampton cancer doctor
Cancer Research UK has awarded Dr Sean Lim from the University of Southampton a prestigious Clinician Scientist Fellowship as part of a series of grants for gifted clinicians involved in turning promising lab research into new treatments for cancer patients.
The award is part of a £2.75 million investment by the charity that will provide four years funding to allow four talented medical professionals to establish their own independent research groups, helping bridge the gap between the laboratory and the clinic to bring benefits to patients more quickly.
Dr Lim is investigating how to coax the immune system to seek and destroy tumour cells. This approach, known as immunotherapy, could hold great promise for treating cancer in the future.
Our immune systems have evolved to seek and destroy anything ‘foreign’. What’s more, immune cells have excellent memories, so most repeat offenders are quickly dealt with. But cancer cells employ cunning tricks to dodge the immune response, leaving tumours free to carry on growing.
Dr Lim is trying to find out why this happens, aiming to jolt sluggish immune responses back into action and unleash their firepower to fight lymphoma. Working with top scientists in the UK and US, she’s developing ways to tag lymphoma cells with a ‘red flag’, making them more visible to patrolling immune cells. By helping the immune system spot cancer, her research will lead to better ways to treat lymphoma, improving our arsenal against this disease.
She said: “This award allows me to pursue a combined career in science and clinical medicine. With the award, I have been given the rare opportunity of being able to explore and expand my scientific experience through working with two of the best labs in the world.”
Dr Iain Foulkes, Cancer Research UK’s director of strategy and research funding, said: “The quality of applications this year was very high and, although it was extremely difficult to choose, we’re confident that we have found four exceptional researchers. These Clinician-Scientists are going to be crucial in taking our fundamental understanding about cancers and using it to help the people that they meet in the clinic. The support from Cancer Research UK will allow them to combine their research and their clinical work and have a real impact on patients with cancer.”