You will often hear CROSS described as a charity that funds translational research. It is a useful phrase, but not an obvious one. So what does it actually mean — and why does it matter for patients with cancers of the oesophagus and stomach?
From the laboratory to the clinic
Translational research is the work that carries a discovery across the gap between the laboratory bench and the patient’s bedside. A scientist might notice that a particular protein behaves differently in tumour samples. On its own, that observation changes nothing. Translational research is everything that happens next: validating the finding in real patient samples, understanding what it means for diagnosis or treatment, and testing whether it can improve care in the clinic.
A discovery only becomes a treatment when someone does the patient, careful work of proving it holds true — and showing how it can help.
Why it is hard — and why it needs funding
This middle ground is notoriously underfunded. Large grants tend to reward either fundamental science or late-stage clinical trials, leaving a gap precisely where translational work lives. That is the gap CROSS exists to fill.
The kind of support that makes the difference is often modest and very specific:
- A PhD stipend that keeps a talented young researcher on a project.
- Pilot funding to generate the first results that a larger grant will demand.
- A piece of laboratory equipment that a whole team relies on.
- The biobanking and sample infrastructure that lets a hypothesis be tested in real patient tissue.
One coherent pipeline
At CROSS, this work is delivered by three complementary teams based in the Department of Surgery at Trinity College Dublin and St James’s Hospital — spanning translational tumour biology, radiobiology and tumour immunology. They share biobanks, clinical cohorts and laboratory platforms, so a finding in one lab can be tested in the next. The result is a single pipeline that runs from discovery science all the way to patient impact.
Where you come in
Every donation to CROSS is part of this bridge. It funds the people and the early-stage work that turn a promising observation into something that can change a patient’s care. That is what translational research means — and it is what your support makes possible.
