Our current cancer research programme

 

Preventing metastasis and saving lives

Our Cancer and Polio Research Fund laboratories are based at the School of Biological Sciences at The University of Liverpool.  Each year we contribute £20,000 to help maintain the infrastructure of the Laboratories and to fund pilot experimental research.

Whilst most cancer research elsewhere is concentrated on the cause of cancer, scientists at our Laboratories focus on the spread, or metastasis, of cancers, particularly breast cancer.  It is this spread of cancer that is the cause of most cancer deaths.

Our researchers have recently identified a family of genes, called metastagenes, that are active in this process of metastasis.  They believe that, if the action of these can be controlled, the spread of cancer can be prevented and thus patients’ lives saved.  Their work has put us one step closer to saving thousands of lives and our Laboratories are now recognised as world-leaders in this sphere of cancer research.

Building on the discovery of metastagenes, the research we are sponsoring has the long-term aim of developing drugs to control these genes, enabling primary tumours to be treated without secondaries developing.  The work is being done on a progressive basis, the overall programme being divided into discrete projects.  The total cost is likely to be £1½ million and take a number of years to complete, the exact timescale being dependent on the availability of funding.

Cancer and Polio Research Fund is currently sponsoring three of these projects, investigating the metastagenes known as S100P and S100A4, at a cost this year of £88,000.

 

Small peptide analogues of CDK4 for cancer treatment

For the last ten years, Cancer and Polio Research Fund has been closely involved with research that has led to a unique discovery that explains how cancer cells keep relentlessly growing.  Arising from this, a constituent of a protein has been identified that selectively kills cancer cells.  Whilst most anti-cancer drugs are only effective against a particular type of cancer, this constituent appears to kill a wide range.  Work has now started on translating the discovery into an anti-cancer drug, thus having direct clinical application.

We are jointly funding this work with The University of Southampton at a cost to ourselves of £40,000 over three years.  This year we are contributing £13,500.