The study and translation of tumor treatments looks set to get a boost in Britain with a new system of collaborative research hubs due to open across the nation. Cancer Research UK launched its first new cancer center in Birmingham on 19 February. The launch was the first of several such centers scheduled to be opened this year. As this issue of Nature Medicine went to press, a second center was set to launch in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 24 March.

The new centers are a virtual concept, with no new building as such. “Cancer Research UK developed the centers concept as a new format for distribution of funds,” says Paul Moss, who will take on the role of the first lead investigator for the new Cancer Research UK center in Birmingham.

The University of Birmingham's School of Cancer Sciences has ongoing translational research and clinical trials, with a particular focus in urological malignancies and leukemia, Moss explains. Cancer Research UK has provided substantial funding to the department in the past, but with the opening of the new center it will now provide an annual contribution of £9 million ($13 million) a year from the charity for continued development of the center.

Birmingham is located in the UK's West Midlands region, home to nearly 6 million people with a very diverse population mix, says Lawrence Young, who heads the University of Birmingham's College of Medical and Dental Sciences. Young explains that the aim of the center is to fast-track treatments for cancer patients from the lab but also “to demonstrate to local cancer patients that there is high-quality cancer research activity on their back door, and that they will be benefiting from the fruits of that research perhaps more immediately than anybody previously recognized.”