Professor Jean Abraham directs the Precision Breast Cancer Institute which will become part of the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital. She has been a Fellow at St John’s since 2018. Jean discusses her work and the future of breast cancer research with Susan Burnett, Alumni Relations Coordinator.
In January 2025 the government announced that the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will proceed as planned. What will that mean for your work?
The Precision Breast Cancer Institute will move into the new hospital, so this announcement is hugely significant for my team and the future of our work in breast cancer research and treatment. It will give us the optimal environment and location to develop our translational research.
What will be the benefits of bringing academics and doctors together in the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital? How will it differ from the current typical structure and who else will be involved?
The new hospital unites clinicians, researchers, industry and patients to work together to find faster, smarter ways to cure and control cancer. That’s the message of the new hospital. The wonderful thing about Cambridge is the ecosystem that exists to support an innovative approach. The Biomedical Campus encompasses Addenbrookes’ Hospital. The new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will be just a stone’s throw from Astra Zeneca’s global research and development headquarters (the leading biopharmaceutical company in the UK) and will be sited at the centre of a community of clinical and non-clinical researchers. This proximity will change things significantly. Over 26,000 square metres and 7 stories of physical space, the hospital will provide 77 in-patient beds, a day unit, an outpatient unit and the research institute itself. Co-location should speed our progress from idea to implementation.
What will this mean for patients in the longer term?
Patients will see that research is at the heart of the work going on at the new hospital. They have already been co-producers of the design, so all aspects of the hospital will reflect the experiences and preferences of actual cancer patients and their families.
Do you think that co-locating scientists and patients also speeds things up for breast cancer diagnostics and treatment?
Yes, because at the new hospital, when a scientist or a clinician has an idea for a research project, they will be right alongside the people who can work with them and develop it. The outcome will be collaborative research for new trials and more effective treatment pathways. It will also lead to greater opportunities for innovation. The UK and Cambridge has always been known for its strength in Life Sciences. The new hospital aims to maximize that potential. For the patient this will mean reduced exposure to unnecessary toxic treatments and more personalised treatment plans driven by the better application of data. Multidisciplinary teams will be able to review all components and data relating to a patient’s journey simultaneously and thus make more informed decisions. We will also be able to run healthy volunteer trials as part of our early detection of cancer strategy. Clinical research in the NHS requires our research efforts to be very carefully thought out. We do not have endless money to support research ideas, so we must think a lot harder about an idea and its potential benefits. We cannot be scattergun, so bringing together inter-disciplinary teams that develop projects together will be critical.
Will it be necessary to improve patient engagement in the research, and if so, how will you go about it?
There needs to be a culture change to achieve this. We are considering how we can improve the ways we approach, engage, consent and include all people in research. How people perceive research can vary widely based on what they have heard, read and the experiences of their friends, families and communities. We need to think hard about the process of how and when a patient comes into contact with the work of researchers. The ethos of the new hospital is that we want to make research easy for everyone to understand and participate in. Curing cancer will need to be a community effort. Improving the ease with which people can understand and participate in research will enable progress. This should encourage participation in studies, gain consent for the safe sharing of more data, and provide samples to support the critical discovery science work done in research institutes like the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute. By getting patients on board with this new way of doing things we will start to change mindsets. It will also be a place where our students in Cambridge will have the opportunity to train in an inspiring and innovative environment.
And is there a role for AI in these ambitious plans?
The Early Detection Institute, the Precision Breast Cancer Institute and the Integrated Cancer Medicine Institute will all be developing tools that will use AI and machine learning to inform diagnostics and different types of prediction. We are already using information from different types of treatment and tests to do this. We will be bringing all the information together to predict how different patients will respond to treatments and thus select the best options for them. These types of tools should not only help local and regional patients but should be accessible nationally and internationally.
How will the new hospital’s impact extend far beyond Cambridge?
In the Precision Breast Cancer Institute, we are building a global resource involving different types of data from thousands of patients. Whilst the physical location of the hospital is Cambridge, the work that it will do will change lives of people not only throughout the UK but also across the world.
What timeline are you working towards and do you have the necessary funding?
In January the government approved the new hospital to be built by 2029–2030, and there is an expectation to actively fundraise to get additional funds.
What has been your career path so far and would you recommend your career specialism to others?
I started out completing a degree in pharmacology before moving into medicine. I started my specialist training in 2001, which involved gaining expertise in all the sub-types of cancer. In 2011 I became a Consultant in Medical Oncology specialising in breast cancer. Over the last 14 years breast cancer diagnosis and treatment have changed a lot. In recent years it has become far more targeted to individual patients, and survival rates have improved. Early detection is a key factor. Some patients do not need chemotherapy, for example, if the disease is spotted early enough.
Oncology is an amazing speciality to go into. It combines work in acute medicine with an interesting capacity for research, either laboratory-based, in the clinical settings, and/or in drug development. There are a lot of women working in oncology – in both the clinical and research strands. I believe that the new Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital will be the place in the UK and Europe to practice oncology because of the new facilities and opportunities that will be available.
Read more about the how the Cambridge Cancer Research Hospital and the Precision Breast Cancer Institute will change the story of cancer forever and watch the video here.