Cancer Research UK is to invest up to GBP16 million in two drug-discovery programmes.
The programmes will include the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research in Manchester and the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow.
The charity has also awarded grants of up to GBP2.5 million each to the University of Southampton and the University of Oxford to kick-start therapeutic antibody work.
It is expected the grants will be provided over a five-year period.
The programmes in Manchester and Glasgow have been established to seek out potential drug targets and develop cancer drug treatments of the future.
The grants awarded to Southampton and Oxford will be used to create vaccines that stimulate the body's immune system to fight cancer.
The investment is the result of a strategic initiative from Cancer Research UK, aimed at increasing the charity's expertise in small-molecule drug discovery - using chemical compounds to stop the growth and spread of cancer and antibody therapy to promote immune responses against cancer.
Dr Donald Ogilvie who will lead the Drug Discovery Programme at the Paterson Institute, said: 'We will focus on areas of unmet need, such as treatments for rare cancers, which have the potential to yield new treatment options that can have a real impact on cancer patients.' Dr Martin Drysdale, who will lead the Drug Discovery Programme at the Beatson Institute, added: 'I plan to use my expertise in a relatively new approach called fragment-based screening, in which we will test thousands of chemical fragments against their chosen drug target and pick the ones that work best.
'This approach allows us to build a drug from scratch instead of finding one which might be suitable and then trying to improve it.
'We aim to use this new centre to boost the charity's capability in this area.' The team at the University of Southampton will be led by Professor Martin Glennie and the University of Oxford team will be headed up by Dr Alison Banham.
These groups will seek to create antibodies to treat cancer and allow the body's immune system to attack and kill cancer cells.
