Yorkshire Cancer Research has awarded Professor Pamela Rabbitts and Professor Terence Rabbitts in the Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine (LIMM) a five year programme grant to launch the YCR Centre for Pre-cancer Genomics.
Funding of £2.74 million will enable a multidisciplinary team to be established to study cancer genomes at the earliest stage of cancer development. Genomes will be analysed using high through-put methodology, in particular the new clonal DNA sequencing.
A key feature of this programme is that it builds on close collaboration with NHS colleagues in St James University Hospital made particularly effective by a shared campus. It will take advantage of the wealth of clinical material stored in the archives of Leeds Teaching Hospitals, beginning by focussing on the pre-malignant lesions that precede the development of lung and oral cancers. In parallel, pre-cancer samples for genome analysis will be obtained from patients undergoing longitudinal surveillance who are at high risk for development of these cancers.
The Centre will characterise the cancer mutation repertoire at the very earliest stage in cancer development - the pre-malignant/pre-cancer stage when the genomes are much less complex. At this point, the number of genetic changes is much fewer than in fully malignant cancers, directing attention to those clinically significant mutations that initiate and drive tumour development. The long-term aim of this research is to identify disease markers and drug targets for early cancer. This programme exemplifies the bench to bedside and bedside to bench approach that is central to the strategy of LIMM.