Category Archives: Gene therapy

Expert Opinion: Professor Nick Lemoine on pancreatic cancer

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Pancreatic cancer continues to be one of the hardest cancers to treat, so as part of our Research Strategy, we’ve pledged to boost research in this area with the ultimate aim of improving patients’ survival.

Professor Nick Lemoine, Director of the Barts Cancer Institute, is a world-leading expert in pancreatic cancer and as part of our ongoing Expert Opinion series, he shares his vision for a future in which we can beat this disease.

Professor Nick Lemoine

Professor Nick Lemoine is looking for new ways to detect and treat pancreatic cancer

Cancer Research UK: Why did you choose to focus on pancreatic cancer?

Nick Lemoine: It is a serious health problem across the western world and is becoming an increasing problem worldwide as we get more industrialised and people live longer.

Sadly, the 5-year survival rate hasn’t changed for the last 40 years, and that’s something that urgently needs addressing.

Cancer Research UK: What makes pancreatic cancer so difficult to treat?

Nick Lemoine: One significant problem with the pancreas is that it is deep within the body. You can’t see it, you can’t feel it and by the time symptoms or signs of the disease develop, surgery is no longer an option. And unfortunately, conventional chemotherapy drugs, which have largely been developed for other types of cancer, aren’t very effective, and neither is radiotherapy. So we need a new approach to the problem.

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April podcast is now live

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Click the image to download our latest podcast

In April’s podcast we find out about cancer research in Northern Ireland, as the charity unveils the latest Cancer Research UK Centre in Belfast. Professor Dennis McCance explains more about the centre’s strengths, and what they hope to achieve over the coming years.

Summer is nearly here (hooray!) but excessive sunbathing and sunbed use is causing a steep rise in the number of cases of malignant melanoma, particularly among young women. We find out more about the dangers of sunburn and sunbeds, including one woman’s personal story of melanoma.

Plus, we hear how the latest advances in nanotechnology could pave the way for more effective, targeted treatments for cancer.

To listen, simply go to the podcast homepage, where you can hear the show directly through our Flash player, or click on the player below:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Or click here to download the April podcast (11Mb, 11mins) straight to your computer.

If you’re using iTunes, this is the direct iTunes link.

And there’s also a full transcript of the podcast here.

Hope you enjoy it – please let us know what you think by responding here in the comments.

Kat

Nano-scale advance in targeted cancer therapy

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Could nanoparticles provide promising cancer treatments?

Could nanoparticles provide promising cancer treatments?

Perhaps the biggest challenge in cancer treatment is the issue of selectivity – how to kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.  But many commonly used chemotherapy drugs aren’t especially selective.

As a result, patients can experience unpleasant and distressing side effects, including hair loss, sickness, tiredness and susceptibility to infections.

Modern ‘targeted’ treatments, such as Herceptin and Tarceva, are designed to lock on to particular molecules found on the surface of cancer cells, increasing their selectivity.

But the Holy Grail of cancer research – a treatment that exclusively attacks cancer cells spread throughout the body, whilst leaving the rest of our cells unharmed – is still tantalisingly out of our grasp.

But work by Cancer Research UK scientists may have just taken us a step closer to this goal, with their research into a nanotechnology-based treatment that appears to specifically target cancer cells.

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Viruses in disguise could be key to ovarian cancer treatment

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Virus in Disguise

Ovarian cancer affects over 6,600 women in the UK, and 190,000 worldwide, every year. What’s more, treating it successfully can be difficult. Women are often diagnosed after the cancer has started to spread, and ovarian tumours can be notoriously ‘drug resistant’ – chemotherapy works for a short time but then the cancer starts growing again.

So a new approach is urgently needed.

One strategy under investigation by many of the world’s cancer researchers – including teams funded by Cancer Research UK – is to develop genetically engineered viruses that only multiply inside cancer cells and kill them. Much of this research is based around tweaking a harmless cold virus called adenovirus, turning it into a cancer killer.

Disappointingly, most of the clinical trials of these viruses so far have had poor results. But there’s hope on the horizon. A new approach from Professor Len Seymour and his team, funded by Cancer Research UK, could revive the flagging hopes for virus therapy for ovarian cancer.
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