Cancer researchers impress their peers...and potential patients
October 2007The School of Medicine's researchers enjoyed a successful appearance at the National Cancer Research Institute conference in Birmingham recently with their work hitting the headlines.
Beating breast cancer
Dr Robert Clarke told the conference how he and his team had been investigating human breast cancers for the presence of stem cells – cells that generate new tumours and can cause the cancer to recur – in a series of studies funded by the charity Breast Cancer Campaign.One third of women who are successfully treated for breast cancer find that the disease recurs some years later because some of these cancer cells survive the treatment and begin to grow again. The team’s research into these ‘breast cancer stem cells’ revealed that the cells are stimulated by the Notch gene and they now hope to develop new drug therapies to target this gene and thus stop the growth of any surviving breast cancer stem cells.
Dr Clarke’s work hit the headlines when it was revealed that one drug that is known to attack Notch is already used for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease so, having undergone health and safety checks, its clinical trial for use on breast cancer patients could be speeded up and lead to a treatment in hospital clinics within a few years. Herceptin, by contrast, took more than 15 years to go from the discovery of its gene target to treatment.
Children's cancers
Dr Guy Makin’s work with a new drug that has shown promising pre-clinical activity against cells from several types of children’s cancers also hit the headlines.Dr Makin and his team have shown in laboratory tests that the drug RH1 can kill tumour cells from neuroblastoma, osteosarcoma and Ewing’s sarcoma, three types of childhood and adolescent cancer that are often resistant to current types of chemotherapy.
On the strength of pre-clinical results, the researchers are planning a phase 1 trial for the drug involving children with cancer. The planned trial would be the first for a drug tested for children through Cancer Research UK’s drug development office.
Radiotherapy
The conference also saw a presentation on two projects aimed at reducing the side effects of radiotherapy without decreasing its effectiveness.Around half of patients receive radiotherapy as part of their cancer treatment but the dose is limited by the possibility of causing side effects (toxicity) to the normal tissues and organs that surround the tumour.
Dr Catharine West is co-leading a large multi-centre UK study designed to identify the common genetic variations that are associated with the side effects of radiotherapy, Radiogenomics: Assessment of Polymorphisms for Predicting the Effects of Radiotherapy (RAPPER). She and her team are also involved in a study of patients with the rare soft tissue sarcoma (cancer in the muscles).
