Ludwig Scientists Win Prestigious Cancer Award

Xin Lu and Chi Van Dang recognized for work on Cancer Antibody Atlas

Published on Mar. 5, 2026

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Ludwig Cancer Research has announced that Xin Lu, Director of the Oxford Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and Chi Van Dang, the Institute's CEO and Scientific Director, are co-recipients of a 2026 Cancer Grand Challenges award as members of the ATLAS (for Antibody Tracking for Long-term Avoidance and Surveillance) team. The ATLAS team, led by Paul Bastard of Institut IMAGINE in Paris, will receive up to $25 million over five years to develop a Cancer Antibody Atlas that explores how some people evade cancer despite risk factors.

Why it matters

Cancer immunotherapy has already saved many lives, but many still fail to benefit from existing treatments. The ATLAS team aims to discover antibodies that could lead to advances in cancer detection, prevention, and treatment by studying the antibody repertoires of people who have avoided cancer despite risk factors.

The details

The ATLAS team will employ novel protein profiling technologies to capture patterns linking antibody repertoires and disease states in large cohorts, including centenarians who have escaped cancer, discordant twins, high-risk patients, and cancer patients. They will seek out antibodies that directly stimulate cancer cell destruction, are associated with productive T cell responses, or are autoantibodies that influence tumor growth and survival. The team will also catalog antibodies to pathogens, microbes, food, and other exposures that correlate with cancer incidence or treatment outcomes.

  • The Cancer Grand Challenges initiative was launched in 2020 by Cancer Research UK and the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
  • The ATLAS team will receive up to $25 million over approximately five years.

The players

Xin Lu

Director of the Oxford Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and a professor of cancer biology at the University of Oxford.

Chi Van Dang

CEO and Scientific Director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Cancer Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Paul Bastard

Leader of the ATLAS team and a researcher at Institut IMAGINE in Paris.

Eileen White

Ludwig Princeton Associate Director and co-leader of the CANCAN team, which is investigating cachexia, a wasting condition associated with advanced cancers.

Cancer Research UK

A cancer research and awareness charity that co-launched the Cancer Grand Challenges initiative in 2020.

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What they’re saying

“We are very excited about venturing into this largely unexplored domain of cancer biology and confident that our findings will yield advances in not only the diagnosis and treatment of cancer but possibly toward the Holy Grail of prevention as well.”

— Chi Van Dang, CEO and Scientific Director, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

“Our discoveries on the role of these antibodies in cancer biology will be validated through collaborative studies employing preclinical models and should reveal previously unknown and potentially exploitable mechanisms by which the immune system detects and eliminates tumors.”

— Xin Lu, Director, Oxford Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research

What’s next

The ATLAS team will begin their five-year project to develop the Cancer Antibody Atlas, with the goal of discovering antibodies that could lead to advances in cancer detection, prevention, and treatment.

The takeaway

This prestigious award recognizes the potential of the ATLAS team's innovative approach to studying antibodies and their role in cancer biology, which could unlock new avenues for early detection, prevention, and more effective treatment of cancer.