Prof Antonis Antoniou, Professor of Cancer Risk Prediction in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, has been named as the 2024 winner of the Don Listwin award for outstanding contribution to early cancer detection.
Announced on October 23rd at the Early Detection of Cancer Conference in San Francisco, the award recognises a sustained contribution to, or singular achievement in, the cancer early detection field. The award is named in honour of Don Listwin, Founder, Chairman & CEO of Canary Foundation, dedicated to research into early cancer detection.
Recognition for Risk Prediction Innovation
Antonis and team have been recognised for their work on developing risk prediction models for cancer, in particular for breast and ovarian cancers. These models can help doctors to predict who might be most at risk of certain cancers so that preventive and screening measures can be better targeted.
The team's CanRisk tool is used in primary care to calculate an individual's future risks of developing breast and ovarian cancers using cancer family history, genetic and other risk factors. Since 2020, over 3 million assessments have been performed using CanRisk.
"I am deeply honoured that our work has been selected for the 2024 Don Listwin Award. This award reflects the remarkable dedication and contributions of our team, collaborators, healthcare professionals, patient and public partners, and everyone involved in the multidisciplinary work that underpins CanRisk."
A Team Effort in Cancer Prevention
Over the years, this work has included developing novel statistical methods for modelling cancer susceptibility, understanding cancer risks for genetically susceptible individuals through large-scale collaborative studies, developing and validating multifactorial risk models, and transforming this research into user-friendly tools for clinicians. This has truly been a team effort.
Credit: Catherine Atkins from the Early Cancer Institute, University of Cambridge
About Renata Barnes
Renata Barnes is a science communications specialist at the Canary Foundation, dedicated to sharing breakthrough research in early cancer detection.