Rosetrees is proud to be jointly funding a Clinician Scientist Fellowship with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), supporting Dr. Stefan Antonowicz in his pioneering research to improve outcomes for patients with oesophageal adenocarcinoma—a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat form of cancer. This partnership exemplifies our shared commitment to funding cutting-edge research that can lead to real-world patient benefit.

Dr Antonowicz said “I am so honoured by the way Rosetrees has come together with Cancer Research UK to fund our work. It reflects the positive and enabling culture which makes Rosetrees such a special research-partner. Patients with oesophageal cancer have desperately poor survival and need meaningfully better treatments, which we hope to deliver through COMET”.

Oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) has one of the lowest long-term survival rates, with just 14% of patients living beyond five years. One major reason is that standard treatments, like chemotherapy, often don’t fully eliminate the cancer. This may be because these tumours are not uniform—they contain hidden “pockets” of cancer cells that behave very differently from each other.

Dr. Stefan Antonowicz has discovered that different areas within the same tumour have distinct chemical profiles and gene activity. These regions also respond differently to treatment. His project, called COMET, aims to understand why this happens and how we can develop better, more targeted treatments that tackle these resistant cancer zones.

This work doesn’t just aim to improve treatment for oesophageal cancer. It could also pave the way for new strategies to treat other solid tumours with similar hidden complexities, potentially improving survival and quality of life for many more patients.