{"entity":{"id":"cgc-atlas","kind":"institution","name":"Cancer Grand Challenges team ATLAS (cancer avoidance)","aka":["Team ATLAS (Cancer Grand Challenges)"],"tldr":"An international team, funded in 2026 by Cancer Grand Challenges, that studies people who stay free of cancer against the odds, such as people over 100 and heavy smokers who never get it, to see whether antibodies in their blood help protect them.","summary":"ATLAS is one of five teams announced in 2026 for the challenges set in March 2025, each receiving up to $25 million. It takes on the cancer avoidance challenge, to understand why certain high-risk populations or the extremely aged resist developing cancer, through immune-modulating autoantibodies. It is led by Paul Bastard of the Institut Imagine and includes eight institutions with locations in Denmark, France, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The page notes that team members, Paul Bastard among them, earlier found autoantibodies in people with life-threatening COVID-19 that blocked the immune response to the virus. The team will search serum from cohorts including centenarians, people who stayed cancer-free despite heavy tobacco or alcohol exposure, people with genetic or metabolic predisposition or immune deficiency, twin pairs discordant for cancer and low-risk young adults, for antibodies that correlate with protection or susceptibility, using proteome-scale antibody profiling.","asOf":"2026-11-04","links":[{"label":"Cancer Grand Challenges: ATLAS","url":"https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/atlas"},{"label":"Cancer Grand Challenges: five new teams (2026)","url":"https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/new-teams-announcement"}],"tags":["research-funding"],"related":[],"cancers":[],"sections":[],"technologies":[],"targets":[],"drugs":[],"companies":[],"institutions":["cancer-grand-challenges"],"pathways":[],"terms":[],"trials":[],"people":[],"bottlenecks":["b-prevention-adoption"],"keyPapers":[],"journals":[],"dependsOn":[],"notes":["Placed at the Institut Imagine in Paris, the lead's institute, which has no institution record; coordinates are approximate.","The page names a second team member alongside Paul Bastard for the COVID-19 autoantibody work; the name is not repeated here because its spelling on the page could not be confirmed against a second source.","Paul Bastard has no person record. ATLAS is also a common trial acronym, so the record carries no bare \"ATLAS\" alias."],"city":"Paris","country":"FR","lat":48.845,"lng":2.316,"institutionType":"consortium","website":"https://www.cancergrandchallenges.org/atlas","programs":["Autoantibody profiling in centenarians, high-exposure cancer-free people and discordant twins","Proteome-scale antibody profiling"]},"route":"/institutions/cgc-atlas/","neighbours":{"institution":[{"id":"cancer-grand-challenges","kind":"institution","name":"Cancer Grand Challenges","route":"/institutions/cancer-grand-challenges/"}],"bottleneck":[{"id":"b-prevention-adoption","kind":"bottleneck","name":"Prevention we already have is not deployed","route":"/bottlenecks/b-prevention-adoption/"}]}}