What happens when clinical care directly informs scientific discovery? This episode sees EACR award winners Charlie Swanton, Ayelet Erez and Daniel Kirschenbaum reflect on what drew them to pursuing cancer research alongside patient care, how bedside experiences guide lab investigations, and what it takes to turn a promising finding into real clinical progress. We also touch on recent breakthroughs in their work, and the biggest changes they’ve witnessed in the field.

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

Professor Xin Lu, Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Oxford Branch, and keynote speaker at EACR 2026, talks about her scientific journey shaped by the early, influential studies of P53 and its role as a central tumour suppressor.

Tracing her journey from early training in China to landmark work in the UK, the conversation explores how fundamental questions about DNA damage, cell death, and oncogene stress led to the discovery of the ASPP family of P53 regulators.

The discussion further expands into the concept of cellular plasticity as a driving force in cancer initiation, progression, and therapy resistance, with insights into how tumour suppressors, infection, and environmental stress shape cellular identity. Together, these reflections highlight how decades of curiosity-driven research have helped define modern cancer biology.

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

Professor Bernhard Küster, keynote speaker at EACR 2026, talks about his scientific journey from chemistry to chemical proteomics and precision medicine. He reflects on how an interdisciplinary mindset - combining chemistry, biology, and computational science - has shaped his approach to understanding how drugs act on proteins and how this knowledge can inform personalised cancer treatments. He also shares practical advice for early-career researchers on how to embrace interdisciplinarity in their work.

Bernhard discusses his team’s pioneering work developing technologies such as Prosit, Decrypt-E and Decrypt-M, and highlights how artificial intelligence is accelerating discoveries in proteomics. He also underscores the vital role of the clinical community in providing well-annotated tumour samples - an essential foundation for meaningful AI-driven cancer research.

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

What you eat – specifically the type of fat – might matter for how well your immune system can fight cancer under conditions of obesity. Dr. Hannah Prendeville and Dr. Britta Kunkemoeller, two key researchers behind this work, will discuss the key mechanisms they uncovered that involve weakened immune systems’ “killer” cells.

🔗 Read more about the publication: https://magazine.eacr.org/highlights-in-cancer-research-december-2025/6

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

Conferences don’t just happen – people make them. In this episode, Johanna Joyce, Joana Paredes and Mariangela Russo take you behind the scenes of the Annual Congress of the European Association for Cancer Research, from shaping sessions and selecting speakers to fostering early career opportunities and spotting emerging science. Hear their reflections on EACR 2025 in Lisbon and get an insider glimpse of the themes and initiatives planned for EACR 2026 in Budapest.

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

In this episode, we take a quick dive into the rapidly evolving field of cancer neuroscience. Joining us are Dr. Andreas Trumpp and Dr. Vera Thiel from DKFZ and HI-STEM, who introduce Trace-n-Seq, a groundbreaking technology that enables the molecular characterization of neurons within tumours at single-cell resolution. We discuss the application of this cutting-edge innovation in pancreatic cancer, from the insights it offers into neuron–cancer–microenvironment interactions, to the powerful clinical implications.

This episode focuses on the following publication in Nature (10.1038/s41586-025-08735-3), highlighted in a recent edition of the EACR’s Highlights in Cancer Research.

🔗 Read more about the publication: https://magazine.eacr.org/highlights-in-cancer-research-july-2025/9/

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

Two of the biggest challenges for the treatment of most solid cancers are drug toxicity, particularly systemic toxicity, and drug permeation in the tumoral tissue. These obstacles may be mitigated through the development of intracellular delivery systems designed to selectively deliver drugs to the tumour.

In this episode, we discuss with Dr. Vishnu Raman, CSO and co-founder at Ernst Pharmaceuticals, the benefits and challenges of using genetically engineered Salmonella strains as a vector for the transport of therapeutic proteins into malignant cells. The focus will be on his recent publication in Molecular Therapy (10.1016/j.ymthe.2024.12.038), highlighted in a recent edition of the EACR’s Highlights in Cancer Research.

🔗 Read more about the publication: https://magazine.eacr.org/highlights-in-cancer-research-march-2025/3/

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast

We speak with Dr. Georgia Konstantinidou and Dr. Chiara Pozzato from University of Bern about their recent pre-clinical research investigating a new potential treatment approach for KRAS driven cancers. The conversation explores the role of FAK signalling in KRAS driven NSCLC and potential approaches to bypass drug resistance against FAK inhibitors from the molecular mechanisms involved to the impact of their study for the wider cancer research community.

This study has been published in EMBO Molecular Medicine and was included in the EACR's Highlights in Cancer Research, a summary of the most interesting and impactful recent papers in cancer research.

🔗 Read more about the publication: https://magazine.eacr.org/highlights-in-cancer-research-december-2024/7/

🔗 Access transcripts for all our episodes at magazine.eacr.org/podcast