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 particularly exciting about this discovery?
Dr Alcolea and her team were also able to pinpoint the exact proteins that regulate this growth process, and demonstrated that blocking them can actually reverse it. This ground-breaking discovery not only offers new avenues for stopping oesophageal cancer growth, but it also fundamentally changes the way scientists understand how cells and tissues are able to change and adapt to different environmental triggers.
It offers real, tangible hope for a future where no life is cut short by oesophageal cancer. And it isn't just cancer that these discoveries can impact. They impact all forms of regenerative medicine, an innovative branch of therapies that aim to help the body repair damaged tissue using its own engrained biology.
Regenerative medicine looks to 'cure the uncurable', 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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