A research team working with The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre has been awarded more than £475,000 from Blood Cancer UK to continue and expand UNCOVER, one of the largest blood cancer data research programmes in the world.
The funding will support UNCOVER for a further three years, helping researchers deepen understanding of how blood cancers are diagnosed, treated and how patients’ outcomes vary across England. The award includes £205,194 confirmed funding, with a further £270,006 dependent on annual milestone reviews.
The UNCOVER study is sponsored by The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, with analysis led by an expert team of health data scientists at the University of Liverpool.
The study uses routinely collected NHS data from all people diagnosed with blood cancer in England since 2014, creating a unique, national picture of real-world care and outcomes. The latest data release includes information on more than 300,000 blood cancer patients, alongside a large control group, making the database globally distinctive in both scale and depth.
Unlike many large research programmes, UNCOVER is shaped jointly by clinicians, patients and early career researchers from across the UK. Research questions are scoped and prioritised through a national advisory group, ensuring the findings address issues that matter most to people affected by blood cancer.
Over the past three years, UNCOVER has already generated significant impact, with findings presented at major international scientific conferences and multiple peer reviewed manuscripts now in preparation or submission. The programme has also helped attract additional research funding, including support to investigate health inequalities in blood cancer.
The new funding will allow the team to further expand the database, deliver a larger pipeline of high priority research questions, strengthen education and training opportunities, and build international collaborations. There is also a strong focus on ensuring the research leads to real world impact for patients, including supporting evidence needed to inform NHS decision making.
Prof Andy Pettitt, Consultant Haemato-Oncologist at Clatterbridge and Ronald Finn Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Liverpool, a Chief Investigator in the UNCOVER team, said: “This funding is a huge vote of confidence in UNCOVER and in the power of using real world NHS data to improve outcomes for people with blood cancer.
“By bringing together clinicians, researchers and patients, we can ask better questions, generate more meaningful evidence and ensure that research leads to real change in care.”
