Could targeting tiny droplets inside cells help to treat bowel cancer?
Cancer types:
Bowel cancer
Project period:
–
Research institute:
Erasmus MC
Award amount:
£261,126
Location:
Netherlands
Dr Schuijers and his team in the Netherlands are exploring whether disrupting tiny ‘droplets’ of molecules inside cancer cells can stop cancer growth. Their work will bring vital new understanding of the disease, and could lead to more effective treatment for patients with bowel cancer.
Why is this research needed?
Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death worldwide. New cures are especially crucial for patients with more advanced disease that has spread to other organs and who might not be able to have surgery. Surgery is an important part of treatment for bowel cancer, but because it is not always possible, we need other options, including more effective drug treatments, too.
Dr Schuijers and his team have found that an important molecule - which drives cancer - sticks together in tiny droplets inside bowel cancer cells. The team think that disrupting these droplets could be a powerful new way to block bowel cancer growth, and they are using Curestarter funding to explore exactly how. They hope their work will demonstrate that this approach can effectively target bowel cancer, and will ultimately lead to lifesaving treatments for more people with the disease.
The funding from Worldwide Cancer Research will allow me to fund a new team member and start a project that otherwise would not have been possible. In science there is always a scarcity of resources and an abundance of impactful potential projects. This funding allows me to execute one of the best of those projects.
What is the science behind this project?
Cancer begins when cells start to divide out of control. To drive this process, huge networks of genes and molecules inside cells stay ‘switched-on’ for much longer than they should. Finding ways to switch-off these networks could be an effective way to treat cancer.
Dr Schuijers and his team have been studying a special network of molecules that is commonly switched-on in bowel cancer. They have found that a key molecule in this network, called beta-catenin, organises itself in to tiny droplets inside the cell. The team think that stopping beta-catenin from forming these droplets might be one way to switch-off the overactive network and stop cancer growing.
But beta-catenin droplets form in both healthy cells and bowel cancer cells. So first, the team need to find molecules that work closely with beta-catenin, and that are only present in bowel cancer cells. To do this, the team are going to use state-of the art microscopes to study tiny models of bowel cancer, called ‘mini-guts’, in the lab.
The team will then investigate how targeting these molecules in the mini-guts might disrupt the droplets. One way could involve engineering very small chains of molecules that can enter the cancer cell and attach to the droplets.
What difference could this project make to patients in the future?
Targeting cancer in this way has never been tried before, and this work will help us to understand much more about how cancer develops. It will also tell us whether disrupting these droplets could be the basis of a new and powerful targeted treatment.
This work is also very exciting because beta-catenin and its molecular network are overactive in many cases of bowel cancer. This means that any new treatment that can successfully switch this network off has the potential to help huge numbers of people with bowel cancer, and save many more lives.
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