Journey to the centre of a cell: why does age matter in cancer?
Cancer types:
Bowel cancer
Project period:
–
Research institute:
University of Edinburgh
Award amount:
£245,139
Location:
United Kingdom
Professor Lesley Stark and her team are investigating why we are more likely to develop cancer as we age, and how important changes that happen inside our cells are involved. Their work has the potential to completely shift how we think about the disease, and to uncover brand new possibilities for prevention and treatment.
Why is this research needed?
Our risk of developing cancer increases as we age, with around half of all cancer cases worldwide diagnosed in people aged 65 years or older. But ageing alone does not cause cancer, and some people will never develop the disease. We still do not really know why this is.
Professor Stark has come up with an exciting new idea that could help to unravel the complex relationship between ageing and cancer. She wants to know whether an important structural change that tends to happen to our cells as we grow older is connected to a process called inflammation, and if this connection could be a driving force for cancer.
This project has huge potential to provide incredible breakthroughs in our understanding, and reveal new approaches to treatment and better ways to detect and prevent the disease.
Age is the biggest risk factor for many cancer types, including colorectal cancer. The funding you have provided will allow us to continue our research into the biological pathways that prevent colorectal cancer, and provide understanding of how these pathways change with age. This is vital for cancer prevention in an ageing population.
What is the science behind this project?
Thanks to Curestarter support, Professor Stark will study a part of the cell called the nucleolus. This is a small blob full of important material that is located right in the middle of most of our cells. Its job is to produce some of the essential ingredients that cells need to make proteins, which are vital for lots of processes in your body.
Researchers have long known that the nucleolus can change and grow larger as we grow older. But we don’t yet know if, or how, these changes could be connected to cancer. This is what Professor Stark and her team want to find out.
The team think that as the nucleolus grows larger, it could be driving a type of inflammation in the body that is linked to cancer. This could be one reason we are more likely to develop cancer as we age.
To find out, the team will collaborate with other top researchers to use a variety of innovative techniques. They have gained access to two unique collections of cell samples donated by patients who either have bowel cancer, or who have a higher risk of developing the disease. Age is a known risk factor for developing bowel cancer, and the samples will provide huge insight into how the size of the nucleolus, inflammation, and cancer risk are linked.
The team will also use an innovative technology called CRISPR, to break up DNA inside cells and induce changes in the size of the nucleolus that they can then study in the lab.
What difference could this project make to patients in the future?
If Professor Stark and her team can establish definite links between changes to the nucleolus, inflammation, and cancer, it would change our whole understanding of how ageing and cancer are related. This work has real potential to open up vast new areas of research, helping us to find more new targets for cancer cures, and better biomarkers for predicting who is most at risk of age-related cancer.
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