Movember is rocking the prostate cancer research world by breaking down barriers, funding collaboration rather than competition, uncovering the best talent and bringing them together to work as a team. 

As a global organization, Movember has a unique perspective into the cancer research world. We found that prostate cancer researchers often work on similar projects, unaware of or unable to work with researchers in other countries. Historically, principal investigators compete for grant money and take the majority of the recognition from publications and patents, which is crucial to getting more grants. It is a self-perpetuating and limiting cycle that has stifled young investigators, which also has the effect of slowing down scientific advancement.  

We knew this way of working wasn’t right and needed to change.

In 2010, Movember took action to close the GAP that existed between researchers and accelerate breakthroughs by launching the Global Action Plan (GAP). GAP brings researchers from across the globe together to work and collaborate on specific projects. Now three years into this ambitious project, GAP has created an unprecedented level of collaboration with hundreds of researchers from across the globe participating.

Thanks to you, the first of the Global Action Plan projects addresses one of the most significant issues with prostate cancer  - our inability to test a man to determine if he has an aggressive or a low-risk type of prostate cancer. 

To tackle this urgent issue, we have assembled a team of 150 expert researchers from across 15 countries, which are now working together to examine biomarkers - from blood, urine and tissue, with the aim of developing better tests to measure the severity of the disease within individual patients. Ultimately, once the type of prostate cancer is determined, patients will receive personalized and more effective treatments to stop the progression of the disease.

Adam Garone, Movember CEO and co-founder said, “We found that prostate cancer researchers within a country and globally weren’t working together, often they didn’t know each other existed. This didn’t make sense to us, now we are connecting the best minds, bringing them together on specific challenges, funding them to work together and providing them with tools to collaborate.  We are doing this because too many men are dying and far too many are being wrongly treated.”

Thank you for joining us on this journey - by working differently and collaborating on a global scale we are accelerating outcomes for men and their families.

Together, we are changing the face of research.

Want to learn more about GAP in the US? Click here to watch a behind the scenes video with prostate cancer researcher and Mo Sista, Lorelei Mucci.