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NCI and Cancer Research UK Name Five New Grand Challenges Teams
Two of the world's largest cancer funders picked five new international teams to work on long-stuck problems. Here is what the 2026 teams are taking on, and what research funding news does and does not change for patients right now.
Original commentary from the Cancer Explained editorial team.
Please note: this page is educational only — it is not medical advice, and it does not speculate about anyone’s health beyond reliable public reporting. For questions about your own health, talk with your healthcare team.
On September 21, 2026, the National Cancer Institute published a post about Cancer Grand Challenges, a partnership it runs with Cancer Research UK. The news: five new international research teams have been selected, four of them co-funded by NCI.
The idea behind the program is simple to state and hard to do. Some problems in cancer have not moved for decades. They are too big for one lab, and often too risky for ordinary grant funding, which tends to reward projects likely to work. So two of the largest cancer funders in the world pool money and ask teams from different countries and different fields to take one problem each.
What the new teams are working on
NCI's post describes the 2026 teams this way:
- Team CAUSE is looking at patterns of chemical damage to DNA, to find causes of cancer that could be prevented in the first place.
- Team InteroCANCEption is mapping how the nervous system and tumors communicate — whether nerve signals affect how cancer grows.
- Team ILLUMINE is studying the cancer "dark proteome," the proteins in tumors that have gone largely unexamined, looking for targets the immune system could be pointed at.
- Team REWIRE-CAN is testing whether deliberately stressing colorectal cancer cells can break their resistance to treatment.
NCI notes that 227 teams submitted expressions of interest in this round, and 12 were shortlisted for full applications and interviews.
Earlier teams are still running, including groups studying extrachromosomal DNA in aggressive tumors, early-onset colorectal cancer and biological aging, cachexia (the severe weight and muscle loss some people with cancer experience), and CAR T-cell therapy for children's solid tumors. NCI says that last team, NexTGen, launched three coordinated early-phase trials.
Why "we are studying this" is still news
It is fair to ask why a funding announcement belongs on a patient site.
The reason is that it shows where the field thinks the stuck points are. Prevention. Nerves and tumors. Proteins nobody has catalogued. Resistance. Those four choices are a statement about what is not currently solved — which is often more informative than a press release about something that already works.
NCI also mentions two structural details worth noticing. Several hundred early-career researchers get training and mentorship through the program, which is how a field keeps existing in twenty years. And patient advocates hold formal roles on every team, rather than being consulted at the end.
What this does not mean
- It does not mean a new treatment is coming soon. These are research programs at the start of their work. The distance between a funded idea and an approved treatment is measured in years, and most ideas do not make it.
- It does not mean these are the only problems being worked on. Grand Challenges is one program among a great many. Its teams were picked for being hard and collaborative, not for being the most important work in cancer.
- It does not change any decision a patient faces today. Nothing here affects screening, diagnosis or treatment choices this year.
- It does not tell you whether any of it will work. Funding is a bet, placed on purpose on risky questions. Some of these teams will not find what they are looking for. That is what the program is for.
Where to look next
People who want to follow research as it actually reports out generally do better watching clinical trials than funding announcements. ClinicalTrials.gov lists studies with public protocols and, eventually, public results, and NCI maintains patient-facing information on finding and joining trials.
How this article was prepared
An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page from the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Currents post of September 21, 2026, opened on the source-check date shown above. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.
Cancer Explained is published by the National Cancer Information Foundation. It is not medical advice and does not suggest a test or treatment.
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