Latest Publication from the Accelerator Consortium

Vyse S, Thway K, Huang PH, Jones RL (2021). Next-generation sequencing for the management of sarcomas with no known driver mutations. Current Opinion in Oncology, doi: 10.1097/CCO.0000000000000741

Grant Awards for Aligned Funding

Many congratulations to Nadia Zaffaroni and Val Brunton for their grant success.

Zaffaroni N. Dissection of drug resistance mechanisms in dedifferentiated liposarcoma to identify novel therapeutic targets. AIRC-Investigator Grant.

Brunton V. Identification of new therapeutic approaches for undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma. Sarcoma UK.

Year 1 Annual Report to Cancer Research UK

The Year 1 annual report was submitted in June 2021 and Cancer Research UK has now confirmed the release of Year 2 funding.

Consortium Update

One of the Seville Team (IBIS / University Hospital Virgen del Rocío) have moved to Madrid. The team will maintain Seville (University Hospital Virgen del Rocío) as a site and add Madrid (IIS-Fundación Jiménez Díaz) to the Accelerator Consortium.

Trial Protocol Update

• The PANTHR-S accelerator study will be opened in the Royal Marsden Hospital shortly.
• Milan, Seville and Madrid Centres have submitted the PANTHR-S study protocol to their local IRB.

Accelerator Steering Committee Meeting

The second Steering Committee Meeting took place on 29th June 2021 following a delay caused by the pandemic. Robin Jones provided a progress update on the Accelerator Programme in the meeting, then followed by centre and funder updates which were provided by Laura Alexander (Beatson Centre), Nadia Zaffaroni (Milan Centre) and Kieran Prior (Cancer Research UK). Overall, the meeting went well, with very positive feedback received from the patient representatives and funder. The next meeting will take place on 16th November 2021.

Accelerator Project Catch-up Meeting

The Project Catch-up meetings took place virtually on 14th July and 14th September 2021. The next meeting will be held on 10th November 2021.

Inaugural Accelerator Annual Meeting

The Inaugural Sarcoma Accelerator Annual Meeting will take place on 9th December 2021. This one-day meeting will be held in a hybrid format of in-person and virtual. The in-person part of the meeting will be held in London.

Quarterly Informal Accelerator Research Meeting

The second research meeting took place on 17th May 2021.

Grant acknowledgement text

Please remember to include the following grant acknowledgement text in manuscripts that have received funding from the Sarcoma Accelerator: ‘This work was supported by the International Accelerator Award funded by Cancer Research UK [C56167/A29363], Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro [AIRC - 24297] and Fundacion Científica – Asociacion Espanola Contra el Cancer [Foundation AECC - GEACC19007MA].’. The order of the funding bodies appear in the acknowledgement is flexible, as it depends on the centre that led the work in the publication.