AICR (Association for International Cancer Research) has awarded an Aberdeen scientist a grant of more than £105,000 to study changes in proteins found in bowel cancer cells with the aim of finding a new way to diagnose and treat early stages of the disease.
Professor Graeme Murray, who is based at the Department of Pathology at the University of Aberdeen, will use a new technology called proteomics to analyse differences found in bowel cancer cells. He and his team will look for characteristic changes in the proteins that correlate with the various stages of tumour growth.
He explains: " Cells have a complex internal mechanism, involving many different protein molecules which carry out a wide range of functions. There are known to be small but important differences in the proteins found in normal and cancer cells. We will use a large collection of bowel cancer samples which have very good information about the stage of each cancer, and we will look for characteristic changes in the proteins of each to find out if we can use this information and knowledge to see if it can be used as a new way to diagnose the stages of this killer cancer."
Dr Mark Matfield, AICR's scientific adviser says bowel cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in developed nations," In fact, Scotland has the highest rate of colon cancer in the UK, with about 3,500 people diagnosed annually.
"Although the outlook for patients with this type of cancer has improved significantly over the last 20 years, currently only about half of patient survive five years after diagnosis. Professor Murray's work may produce a better understanding of how this type of cancer progresses and lead to better methods of diagnosis and treatment."
Norman Barrett, AICR's Chief Executive, says the grant, worth £105,325 over two years is given in line with the charity's policy of funding the most exciting and novel approaches to research worldwide. "It is important to fund work that pushes the boundaries and Professor Murray and his team are pursuing research which could in future change the lives of thousands of people in Scotland and many more across the world."