Scientists at the Cancer Institute at the University of Cambridge have begun working to detect changes in cells many years before they turn into tumors. According to them, this research will help create fundamentally new ways to treat cancer.
The cancer institute, which has just received £11 million from an anonymous donor, is developing ways to fight tumors before they make themselves known. The study builds on recent findings that have shown that many people develop precancerous lesions that lie dormant for a long time.
“The latent period of cancer development can last for years, sometimes decades, before the disease makes itself felt,” says the institute’s director, Professor Rebecca Fitzgerald. “We need an approach that can detect cancer at an early stage and can be applied to a wide range of patients.”
One example is the cytosponge, which was developed by Fitzgerald and her team. It is swallowed like a pill, after which it expands in the stomach. It is then pulled upward, collecting esophageal cells along the way. Those cells that contain a protein called TFF3, which is found only in precancerous cells, serve as a signal that the patient is at risk for esophageal cancer and needs to be monitored. It is important to note that this test is simple and can be performed on a large scale.
Another of the approaches taken by the institute, which will be renamed the Li Ka-shing Cancer Institute after the Hong Kong philanthropist who supported cancer research at Cambridge, focuses on blood research. The institute reuses samples provided by women as part of ovarian cancer screening. “We have about 200,000 of these samples, and it’s a real gold mine,” said Jamie Blundell, leader of the research team.
With their help, the scientists identified changes that distinguished samples from those patients who were subsequently diagnosed with blood cancer 10 or even 20 years later from those who did not develop such conditions. “We found that genetic changes in a person’s blood occur more than a decade before they begin to show symptoms of leukemia,” Blundell said. “This means there is a window of opportunity that can be used to intervene and provide treatment that will reduce the likelihood of developing cancer.”
Cancer tumors grow in stages, and by identifying those whose cells have already begun to change, it is possible to prevent the further development of the disease. The crucial point is that at an early stage, doctors have time to take action and avoid the development and spread of cancer cells.
Harveer Dev, another member of the team who studied men who had their prostates removed, followed a similar strategy. His team is currently developing biomarkers that will provide better ways to identify patients at risk of developing prostate cancer, one of the most common types of cancer in the UK. “Our data shows that these tests may be much more effective than existing ones,” Dev said.
Identifying those at risk of developing cancer, such as people with a family history of tumors, will be a key part of the institute’s strategy. In addition, the focus will be on finding ways to reduce the risk of developing cancer, as well as ensuring widespread use of treatments.
According to Fitzgerald, a woman in her 80s bequeathed £1 million to the university for cancer research. “She lived to be 100 years old and died just recently, so we are only now receiving this donation. We want to understand why some people live to a ripe old age and others get cancer, so that more people can live as long as she did.”
Earlier it became known that the largest British pharmacological company AstraZeneca will acquire Canadian Fusion Pharmaceuticals, specializing in new generation cancer treatment methods, for $2.4 billion. The company is developing new generation radioconjugates that offer an alternative to chemotherapy and radiation therapy and have become a new treatment method in recent years , which delivers a radioactive isotope directly to cancer cells through precise targeting using molecules such as antibodies, peptides or small molecules.
