Fight against drug resistance in cancer patients helped by new award

£2.5m grant from Cancer Research UK for Imperial interdisciplinary team - News

Monday 4 February 2008
By Laura Gallagher

Developing therapies to stop cancer from becoming resistant to drugs is the aim of new research at Imperial, funded by a £2.5m grant from Cancer Research UK announced in January.

Professor Charles Coombes , from the Department of Medical Oncology, and Professor Anthony Barrett , from the Department of Chemistry, are leading research looking at four different molecules believed to be involved in enabling cancerous cells to develop resistance to drugs.

The researchers aim to develop therapies that will target these molecules, in order to stop the cells becoming resistant.

The researchers’ work is particularly focused on breast cancer. The majority of breast cancer cases are hormone-sensitive, meaning that the cancerous cells thrive on oestrogen. Cancer therapies aim to deprive these cells of oestrogen so that they die. However, during treatment, some of the cancerous cells can become resistant to the effects of the drug, so that the therapy ceases to be effective at fighting the disease. It is this issue which the researchers hope to tackle and they aim to be in a position to start trialling new therapies by 2011.

Professor Coombes said of the award: “We are at a stage where there are drugs available that are really effective at fighting cancer. However, the problem for some patients is that once they have been on these treatments for a while, they start to develop resistance to them, which is a major setback. We hope the new grant will allow us to work on new ways of addressing this issue, to give more cancer patients a better chance of a full recovery."

-ends-