Our research in Northern Ireland
Cancer Research N. Ireland supports the work of a number of research groups within the Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology. The Centre is directed by Professor Patrick Johnston. The centre is located next to the Northern Ireland Clinical Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital, so that local scientists and clinicians can work together to improve the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Improving bowel cancer treatments
Sometimes chemotherapy drugs that are used to treat cancer fail to work in individual patients. Cancers develop from normal cells that have undergone changes to their DNA.
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’.
Professor Johnston’s group team are using tiny glass slides holding thousands of DNA samples, called DNA chips, to investigate the genetic faults that cause some people to become resistant to drug treatments.
They have already discovered that a gene called c-FLIP is involved in drug resistance. They now want to develop drugs that will knock-out the effects of c-FLIP to overcome drug resistance.
Understanding the function of the BRCA1 gene
Also at the Centre, Dr Paul Harkin studies BRCA1, a gene that has an important role in stopping the development of cancer. Women who inherit a damaged version of the gene have a high risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. BRCA1 may get switched off in as many as 30 per cent of tumours, even in people who inherit a normal version of the gene.
Dr Harkin’s team has discovered that BRCA1 affects the way cells respond to chemotherapy . Testing tumours to see if BRCA1 is working properly could be a powerful way to help doctors decide which type of chemotherapy treatment to use.
Investigating potential new cancer therapies
In the laboratory, this drug is active against cancers. But scientists don't know exactly how it works. Professor Hirst and his team are trying to work this out.
Their research will help determine whether the drug can be used in patients.
Clinical trials of new cancer treatments
We fund a number of clinical trials taking place at the Northern Ireland Clinical Cancer Centre at Belfast City Hospital. Here are a few examples:
- The COIN trial - this trial is looking at different treatments for patients with bowel cancer that has spread. The treatments being investigated include a new drug called cetuximab.
- One arm of a study known as EMBRACE. It aims to find lifestyle factors that influence the risk of breast, ovarian and prostate cancer in people who have inherited the high-risk cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.
- The Northern Ireland branch of the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study II (IBIS II). The trial will test a new drug called anastrozole to see if it can help to prevent breast cancer in post-menopausal women with an increased risk of the disease.
Improving treatment of children's cancer
Childhood cancer is quite rare, affecting around 1 in 500 children under the age of 15 in Britain. The small numbers of patients, particularly those with rare childhood cancers, mean that collaborative clinical trials are essential if treatment is to rapidly improve.
We fund the clinical trials work of the Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG). The group co-ordinates the care of virtually all the UK’s children with cancer, ensuring they receive the most up-to-date treatments. Children involved in clinical trials tend to do better and the CCLG has greatly improved recruitment in recent years. The CCLG runs trials at 21 paediatric centres throughout the British Isles, including the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast.
Find more of our research in the Northern region.
