Translational research
Just like basic research, translational research is usually carried out in a laboratory. The results from translational studies can tell researchers if a new treatment or test should be tried in people.
Here’s an example of translational research:
Cancer Research UK funds a team of scientists in Cambridge who are studying how cells divide. They have discovered a group of proteins, called the MCM proteins that are essential to this process. One in particular, MCM5, is now being used to develop a diagnostic test for different types of cancers.
Cancer occurs when cells in the body go wrong and start to divide and multiply out of control. MCM proteins are found at high levels in dividing cells, so the scientists investigated whether these proteins could be used to distinguish cancer cells from normal cells.
Using scientific experiments, they found that most normal cells don’t make MCM5. But many different types of cancer cells do, including those from cervical, bladder, prostate, bowel and oeophageal (food pipe) cancers.
Our scientists have shown that detecting the presence of MCM5 in cervical PAP smears improves the accuracy of this test for diagnosing cervical cancer. Detecting high levels of MCM5 in the urine is a good indicator of early stage bladder and prostate cancer. And MCM5 detected in stool samples could be used to diagnose bowel cancer.
More recently, our scientists in London have also found that MCM5 present in fluid samples from the oesophagus could be used to diagnose oesophageal cancers.
We are now funding a large-scale study to further develop the MCM5 test as a diagnostic test for bladder cancer.
So translational research bridges the gap between researchers and patients. But it’s not a one way bridge. It also involves investigating why treatments already used in patients stop working, or why a treatment produces unwanted side-effects. This type of research can be done to improve treatment.
Here’s another example of translational research:
Additional changes, or mutations, can occur as the cancer grows, making the cancer cells more and more abnormal. Eventually these mutations may stop the cancer cells responding to the treatments meant to kill them. This is called ‘drug resistance’.
Our scientists in Northern Ireland want to know how bowel cancers become resistant to chemotherapy. They generated bowel cancer cells, which can be grown in the laboratory and don't respond to different chemotherapy drugs. Then they examined the proteins in these cells to find out what it is that stops them responding to a particular treatment.
They identified a number of proteins that are only made by the drug-resistant cells. The presence or absence of these proteins could be tested to predict if a patient will respond to treatment. This will help doctors decide the best approach for treating individual bowel cancer patients.
