Professor Simak Ali and Dr Lesley-Ann Martin are investigating how proteins called CDKs play a part in cancer’s resistance to palbociclib – a drug used to treat oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) secondary breast cancer. He is exploring whether blocking a protein called CDK7 could be a new way to treat tumours that have become resistant to palbociclib.

Professor Jukka Westermarck is finding new ways to predict which existing drugs will be most effective for triple negative breast cancers. He is investigating how different combinations of altered proteins in cancer cells affect their response to a number of experimental drugs.

Professor Catrin Pritchard and her team has developed a new, more personalised type of tumour model to test drugs before they enter clinical trials. She is exploring whether this system can more accurately represent how drugs will work when given to patients.

Professor Nicholas Turner is testing if combining a drug palbociclib together with the immunotherapy drug avelumab is safe and could be used to successfully treat a sub-type of triple negative breast cancer.

Dr Rachael Natrajan and her team are investigating whether triple negative breast cancer patients could benefit from the CDK4/6 inhibitor drug palbociclib. They want to find ways to predict which groups of patients could benefit from this drug and whose cancer might develop resistance to it.

New ways to treat breast cancer that has spread to the bones are urgently needed. Professor Ingunn Holen is investigating the effect of the drug palbociclib on the spread of breast cancer to bone. She aims to find new treatment combinations to improve options available for patients.