Taking a chance on a bold new idea can give rise to life-changing cancer treatments. Here are some of the most exciting developments and the new thinking behind them

In 1994, Steve Jackson was a fresh-faced academic with a big idea, which decades later would create an entirely new class of cancer medicines. He wanted to study the proteins in our cells that help repair DNA and allow them to keep functioning, speculating that this could unlock secrets to new drugs.

But even though Jackson was already a professor at the University of Cambridge, he was struggling to finance a crucial step in his research project. Few funders wanted to put money behind his untested idea, which might ultimately prove to be a dead end.