Thanks to Curestarter support, researchers co-funded by Worldwide Cancer Research and Guts UK have uncovered one of the ways a rare form of oesophageal cancer grows. This discovery could fundamentally change our understanding of this aggressive cancer, and how to treat it.
I honestly believe that to understand cancer, we first need to understand how it originally forms. If we do not have this information, we may be missing on critical targets to prevent cancer or slow it down.
Why is oesophageal cancer research like this so important?
Oesophageal cancer is the 10th most common cancer worldwide, and one of the most deadly. One of the reasons oesophageal cancer is so hard to treat is that it is incredibly difficult to diagnose early, which is why this recent discovery from Dr Maria Alcolea is so exciting.
Thanks to your support Dr Alcolea and her team in Cambridge have been working tirelessly to better understand the early stages of oesophageal cancer growth. Crucially, they wanted to understand how interactions between oesophageal cells can lead to cancer forming.
They found that conversations between mutations are kick-starting tumour formation, not just the mutations by themselves, as was previously thought. It turns out that sometimes when oesophageal cells try to repair tissue, they can get stuck in this active healing state. But instead of giving up, they send signal out to neighbouring cells and ask them to start growing uncontrollably too, which can cause cancer growth.
What is exciting about this discovery?
The researchers found that an important molecular pathway in tissue, called the HIF1α–SOX9 axis, acts as a kind of safety brake. It allows cells to be flexible enough to repair damage, but also prevents them from becoming too uncontrolled. This is important because when these brakes fail, cells can start behaving in ways similar to cancer development. The team hope that follow-up studies exploring this pathway in cancer formation and progression could help us better understand, and even reverse, cancer formation.
The discovery offers real, tangible hope for a future where no life is cut short by oesophageal cancer. And discoveries like this also impact all forms of regenerative medicine, an innovative branch of therapies that aim to help the body repair damaged tissue using its own ingrained biology. Regenerative medicine looks to 'cure the incurable', with projects working on hard-to-treat diseases like osteoarthritis and Parkinson's, as well as cancer. Dr Alcolea and her team’s work answers wider questions about our bodies’ abilities and how we can better commandeer this biology to improve lives.
None of this would have been possible without the continued support of our Curestarters
Breakthroughs like this underpin our belief in the vital importance of discovery research. Without it, we lose the new answers and discoveries that turn the bright ideas of today into the lifesaving cures of tomorrow.
Thank you to our co-funders on this project, Guts UK. Partnerships between charities unlock more possibilities and bigger impact, and allow us to make smarter use of your incredibly generous donations.
Breakthroughs like this can only happen thanks to the united effort of our Curestarter community.
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