In an oversubscribed event, we welcomed 210 members of the OxCODE community, our patient and public representatives and attendees from other academic and clinical institutions, industry and charities to our annual celebration of Oxford’s cancer early detection and prevention research.
Day 1
OxCODE Director Xin Lu got proceedings underway with a summary of the impressive achievements in cancer early detection and prevention by OxCODE members in the past five years since OxCODE’s launch.

Session 2 featured a lively panel discussion on important considerations for translating cancer early detection and prevention research for patient benefit, with Hazel Beaver (patient and public representative), Claire Brown (Oxford Science Enterprises), Anna Dowrick (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) and Victor Velculescu (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine).
Last before lunch, we heard lightning talks from OxCODE Funding Scheme recipients Lucy Denly (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research) on the analysis of whole genome urinary DNA methylation for earlier detection of bladder cancer recurrence and Dimitris Vavoulis (Centre for Human Genetics and Department of Oncology) on the use of Nanopore whole genome sequencing of liquid biopsies for cancer detection, OxCODE travel award recipient, Yi-Jhih Huang (Department of Oncology) on targeting c-Met for endoscopic detection of dysplastic lesions within Barrett’s oesophagus, and Lucy Goudswaard (University of Bristol) on using Mendelian randomisation to identify circulating proteins involved in multiple myeloma risk. These vignettes stimulated a well-attended poster session over lunch, with posters from OxCODE researchers and other UK academics.
The third session focused on Oxford’s recent advances in the field of vaccines for cancer prevention, with Catriona Gilmour Hamilton (Oxford Cancer) and Anna Fry (patient and public representative) sharing the importance of and lessons learned so far from PPI consultations on the research to use vaccines to prevent cancer. We also heard from two recently CRUK-funded cancer vaccine projects on preventing ovarian cancer (by Nancy Zaarour, Nuffield Department of Women’s and Reproductive Health) and Lynch syndrome-associated cancers (by David Church, Centre for Human Genetics, Nuffield Department of Medicine).

Day 2

Switching gears for a session on risk stratification, we heard from Ling Yang (Nuffield Department of Population Health) on chronic pathogen infections and the risk of cancer and Andres Tamm (Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences) on FIT for colorectal cancer risk stratification.
Taking us into the lunch break, we had two lightning talks by OxCODE Funding Scheme recipients James Chettle (Department of Oncology) on the RNA binding protein LARP1 as a driver of tumorigenesis and Natalie Jooss (MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine) on the role of galectin-1 in myeloproliferative neoplasms.
Our second panel discussion of the event focussed on how to get grant funding for cancer early detection and prevention research, with contributions from Françoise Howe (OxCODE), Talisia Quallo (Cancer Research UK), Janette Rawlinson (patient and public representative) and Florence Theberge (Medical Research Council). The audience were advised to engage with fund managers early, make sure their ideas matched the funders’ interests and to include patient and public members from the start.

We thank all the speakers, chairs and attendees for their contributions towards a highly successful meeting and look forward to next year’s event!
OxCODE welcomes members from across the University of Oxford and Oxford University Hospitals Trust. If you wish to join the OxCODE mailing list to hear about future events and funding opportunities, please email francoise.howe@ludwig.ox.ac.uk