A New Grant
Secondary1st is delighted to announce that it has just awarded a grant to a project led by Professor Simak Ali, who is Professor of Molecular Endocrine Oncology at Imperial College London.
Up to 80% of breast cancer diagnoses are ER-positive and many can be treated successfully with hormone therapy. However some ER-positive tumours stop responding after a time and can return, grow and spread. Professor Ali and his team are working to understand how changes in the ER gene help breast cancer cells grow despite hormone therapy. These changes can also help the disease become more aggressive and spread. This is secondary breast cancer and there is currently no cure.
The Charity will be funding a full-time post-doctoral researcher working with laboratory techniques such as epigenomic and transcriptomic profiling, involving the detailed study of changes in cancer cells to produce information on the consequences of these changes. Professor Ali’s team have already found that not all changes in the ER gene affect breast tumour cells in the same way. ER gene changes fall into two groups based on their impact on other genes and the team want to reach a better understanding of the differences between these two groups, leading to new and more effective ways to treat ER-positive secondary breast cancer.
