Research funding
From 1997 to date Friends of ANCHOR has funded research fellowships and projects at the University of Aberdeen amounting to almost £1m and is committed to a further £0.5m over the next three year period.
Latest research funding, October 2009
Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer
Dr. Al Lawrie, an Aberdeen University graduate, has been awarded a Friends ofANCHOR research felowship of £197,090 for three years to study the importance of immune responses to lymphomas in determining the success of treatment with chemotherapy.
The incidence of lymphoma has doubled over the last 50 years to become one of the most common cancers in Scotland, and one that affects a disproportionately high number of younger people. More encouragingly, improved treatments have resulted in 50% of patients surviving five years after diagnosis.
Most of the recent improvement in survival is due to the development of rituximab, a form of immunotherapy. Other forms of immunotherapy are also attracting attention, notably the exploitation of anti-tumour T cells.
Building on the work of a previous Friend of ANCHOR research fellow, Dr. Sajan Mittal, Dr. Lawrie will determine whether 'regulatory' T cells can be used to detect how effective therapies, including rituximab actually are so that treatment can be better tailored to responses. He will also be monitoring'killer' T cell activity during treatment and testing methods of boosting this activity against lymphoma.
October 2008
New trial to develop better treatment for two major cancers
A groundbreaking new trial will shortly begin to try and establish why chemotherapy works for some patients but doesn’t work for other sufferers of Scotland’s fastest rising cancers.
It is hoped the University of Aberdeen study will pave the way for personalised treatment maximising the chances of success and preventing chemotherapy being administered when it potentially won’t improve the situation.
Friends of ANCHOR has given the researchers £220,000 to use two state-of-the-art technologies to study samples from patients with gullet (oesophageal) and stomach (gastric) cancers. Dr. Russell Petty, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Medical Oncology, University of Aberdeen and Consultant Medical Oncologist, ANCHOR unit, ARI, Foresterhill, is leading the study.
He said: “Gullet and stomach cancers are the most rapidly rising cancers in Scotland; there has been a seven-fold increase in the last three decades and latest figures predict that this alarming rise is continuing.
“Currently there are approximately 1,000 new cases per year in Scotland and by 2020 it is estimated that there will be 1,600 new cases per year.
“Current treatment provides us with some success but improvements are needed. It is important that we undertake research now to enable improved treatment for patients with this disease.
“This will be the first clinical trial of any cancer to combine state of the art imaging with the very latest gene analysis techniques and is therefore truly groundbreaking.”
The new trial builds upon successful research into lung and colorectal cancers that has also been conducted by Dr Petty and supported by Friends of ANCHOR.
Dr Petty added: “It is absolutely tremendous that Friends of ANCHOR are once again generously supporting leading cancer research in the north-east of Scotland. This is vitally important work if patients are to benefit from scientific advances to provide them with the most effective cancer treatment. Support from the charity is invaluable.”
Funding starts in October 2008 until 2011 and £219,754.00 was awarded
The role of inflammation in the pathogenesis of sporadic colorectal carcinoma
Dr. Mhari McLean - Research Fellowship University of Aberdeen Institute of Medical Science, Foresterhill
Mhari McLean is a lecturer and Honorary Specialist Registrar in Gastroenterology and has almost completed a three year research project funded by Friends of ANCHOR researching colorectal cancer (CRC).
The disease is the second biggest cancer killer of men and the third largest cancer killer of women - around 17,000 people die of the disease in the UK each year. The highest UK incidence of CRC in both men and women is in the North-east. Despite the prevalence of the disease - both here and elsewhere - medics understanding of why it develops continues to be poor. The research which will be conducted by Dr McLean for her PhD will examine what factors cause normal cells in the colon to develop into a polyp – a growth which can be precancerous - and then turn cancerous.
Large colonic polyps, which have the highest risk of turning cancerous, often appear inflamed compared to the surrounding normal bowel. Lab studies have shown that markers of cell inflammation are increased and genes related to inflammation are switched on in polyp tissue compared to normal tissue.
Dr McLean is studying this further to clarify the role of inflammation in relation to the development of colon cancer. She proposes that this in fact is the initiating factor which drives the genetic change which leads to the development of cancer of the bowel. This area of research is, as far as we are aware, still to be explored.
The findings from Mhari’s research could potentially have a major impact on scientists understanding of why colorectal cancer develops.
Funding for research fellowships is few and far between. This funding is not available from the NHS and Mhari had already submitted an application to a leading cancer research charity, which offers only one fellowship per annum throughout the UK and unfortunately, Mhari’s application was unsuccessful. Quite simply, if Friends of ANCHOR did not fund this project, it wouldn’t happen.
Funding started in 2005 ends 2008 and £156.00.00 was awarded
Chemoresistance Biomarkers in Colorectal and Lung Cancer
Our programme of research focuses on determining why some patients with bowel or lung cancer respond well to treatment and others, with apparently the same type of disease, do not. These cancers are the second and third most commonly diagnosed cancers in the UK and approximately one-third of all cancer deaths are caused by lung and bowel cancer. With current treatments only around half of patients with bowel cancer and less than 10% of lung cancer patients are cured. Thus improved treatments are required to improve prognosis in these patients.
Our research has identified important molecular differences between patients who respond well to the standard chemotherapy and those who do not benefit from these drugs. We are now further evaluating these genes and proteins to determine whether they can accurately and reproducibly allow us to prospectively identify patients who would subsequently go on to achieve no benefit from the standard chemotherapy if treated. There are no assays currently available that allow prospective determination of a patient’s response to chemotherapy. Development of such a test would allow tailoring of treatment specifically to each individual tumour with improved outcomes for patients. For example, novel therapies which may act by a different mechanism may be effective in patients predicted not to respond to the standard therapy. This will prevent treatment of patients with ineffective and toxic therapies. The importance of early treatment with an effective therapy is emphasised by a recent analysis of lung cancer deaths in Scotland, which revealed that 50% of patients die within 4 months of diagnosis.
A second aspect of the research is to determine which molecules are protecting the tumour from the chemotherapy drugs, in patients who do not benefit from therapy. This will identify targets for the development of novel drugs that may be effective in patients who are refractory to standard treatments.
This work is generously supported by Friends of ANCHOR through funding of a research fellow to develop these studies. This support is invaluable and critical to the success of our research programme.
Funding period was from 2006 to 2008 and £56,949 was awarded.
‘Immune Function in Lymphoma’
Dr Saj Mittal - Research Fellowship, University of Aberdeen Institute of Medical Science, Foresterhill
“In Aberdeen, we see more than a hundred new cases of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma each year.
Chemotherapy remains the first line treatment, but has a lot of side effects and may not be curative. Recently scientists have become interested in harnessing the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. Examples of successful immunotherapy include the use of Rituximab, a monoclonal antibody, in patients with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. At present, Rituximab is widely used in the ANCHOR Unit.
My project, which started in October 2005, is investigating immune responses stimulated by Lymphoma cells. I have shown that Lymphoma cells ‘trick’ the immune system into ignoring the cancer by stimulating the T regulatory cells (T reg), which are a class of lymphocytes that are important in producing immune tolerance.
Now we are trying to understand the mechanisms by which they are induced. This understanding is very important, as it will shed light on mechanisms of immune tolerance, which could be the potential target for future therapy.
Finally, I would like to say that without sponsorship from Friends of ANCHOR, this project would have been unable to go ahead and for that we are extremely grateful. Many thanks for sponsoring this very exciting project.”
Funding was for the period of two years from 2005 until 2007 and £129,226.00 was awarded
