Jacques Fellay’s lab at EPFL will lead data integration and analysis within the Cancer Grand Challenges ATLAS team, selected to investigate why some high-risk individuals never develop cancer.
On 4 March 2026, Cancer Grand Challenges announced five new interdisciplinary teams that will receive up to $25 million each over five years. Cancer Grand Challenges is a global research initiative co founded in 2020 by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the United States. It identifies the toughest challenges in cancer research and supports world class teams to address them.
Among them is Cancer Antibody Atlas (ATLAS), which will explore “the role of immune-modulating autoantibodies in cancer resistance, by utilising unique human cohorts—including centenarians, cancer-free individuals with high-risk exposures, and cancer-discordant twin pairs, building on pioneering work identifying the link between autoantibodies and COVID-19 disease severity.”
Cancer research has traditionally focused on identifying the drivers of cancer. The cancer avoidance challenge takes a different approach. Some individuals carry well established cancer risks yet never develop the disease. The goal is to uncover the biological mechanisms that protect these people and to understand tumour resilience in the host.
ATLAS is led by Paul Bastard at Institut Imagine in France, bringing together clinicians, scientists and advocates with expertise in ageing, immunology, early detection, infectious disease cancer interplay, multi-omics, paediatrics and prevention. It spans eight institutions across six countries.
At EPFL, the Fellay Lab will be in charge of the integration and analysis of the multiple types of data generated by ATLAS. Combining demographic, clinical, laboratory and genomic information with detailed antibody responses will provide unprecedented insight into the immune mechanisms implicated in cancer susceptibility and avoidance.
Team ATLAS is funded by Cancer Research UK and the Torrey Coast Foundation through Cancer Grand Challenges.
The five newly funded teams represent a total investment of $125 million. In total, the funded teams span nine countries and 36 institutions and unite more than 42 investigators and researchers.
Cancer Grand Challenges now brings together more than 1,500 researchers across 21 teams worldwide to take on 18 challenges in cancer research.
Cancer Grand Challenges official announcement new teams
Author: Nik Papageorgiou
Source: Life Sciences | SV
