Mr Richard Brady, Research Fellow at the School of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, the University of Edinburgh
Scientific evidence shows that taking aspirin regularly over a long period reduces a person’s risk of developing bowel and rectal cancer. This project aims to discover the precise effects of aspirin in cancer cells and the large bowel.
One important effect of aspirin in cancer cells occurs because of a signal it sends through a “pathway” in the body which controls cell growth and death. One possible trigger activating this signal is a particular protein which is known to trigger the signal in other situations. Previous research by this team has proved that aspirin targets this protein in non-bowel cancer cells, and that the pathway caused by aspirin depends on this protein. This implies an important role for the protein in aspirin’s anti-tumour effect in colorectal cancer.
The plan is to confirm the importance of these findings by using actual human bowel. If it can be demonstrated that results obtained to date are similar in the setting of human bowel, it will enable great advances in both drug design (developing safer drugs which are more effective in preventing bowel cancer), and identifying additional types of cells which react to aspirin by producing an anti-tumour response.
NB Funding for consumables and laboratory supplies is already in place.
This page was last updated on 20-07-2011