David Lewis shortlisted for Cancer Grand Challenge awards!
21st June 2021
Congratulations to David Lewis for being shortlisted for the next Cancer Grand Challenges funding.
Publication Highlights: May 2021
Androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is the standard of care for the treatment prostate cancer that cannot be removed by surgery. ADT is highly effective; however, many patients go on to relapse. Here, recent PhD graduate Rafael Sanchez Martinez and co-authors have used a proteomic analysis of prostate cancer models to reveal that distinct molecular mechanisms, include amino acid and fatty acid metabolism, affect the way tumours respond to ADT (SLFN5 regulates LAT1-mediated mTOR activation in castration-resistant prostate cancer).
Mitochondrial DNA in cancer: small genome, big impact
In April, we shared the story of a paper from Dr Payam Gammage, shedding light on the role of mitochondrial DNA mutations in cancer. Here, Payam explains in his own words the importance of mitochondria in cancer and the impact this could one day have on cancer care.
Cell Scientist to Watch - Julia Cordero
13th May 2021
Máté Pálfy, Features & Reviews Editor at the Journal of Cell Science, caught up with Dr Julia Cordero to find out about her academic journey, from an undergraduate degree in Argentina, to a PhD in the United States, to a postdoc and starting her own group in Glasgow. Click here to read the interview.
Follow the link to read more about Julia's research: Local and Systemic Functions of the Intestine in Health and Disease
A Tale of Two Genomes
27th April 2021
Efforts to elucidate how mutations in a cell's DNA cause cancer have overwhelmingly focused on the DNA within the nucleus, but a new study published Nature Metabolism highlights the exciting potential of also looking at the genome of the cell's energy factories: the mitochondrial genome.
Publication Highlights: April 2021
This month’s publications highlight the collaborative science that the Beatson regularly participates in both in the UK and around the world.
Liver cancer cases have doubled in Scotland
2nd April 2021
A new study has shown that the rate of people dying from liver cancer in Scotland has doubled over the past two decades. The study also showed that over the same period Scotland has had the highest number of confirmed deaths from liver cancer per head of population out of any of the four UK nations.
Inhibiting apoptosis is the key function of MCL-1 in breast cancer
1st April 2021
A study - led by Kirsteen Campbell, Stephen Tait and Karen Blyth and funded by Breast Cancer Now - has shown that a protein called MCL-1 helps breast cancer cells survive and replicate by blocking apoptosis (cell death), and that tumours rely on it to grow more aggressively.
Christos Kiourtis wins JP Award
24th March 2021
Many congratulations to Christos Kiourtis who has been awarded the Institute's JP Award for best student presentation. Christos is a final-year PhD student in Dr Tom Bird's group, who work on liver disease and regeneration. Christos gave a fantastic talk on the role of the systemic effects of hepatocellular senescence.
International Women's Day 2021
8th March 2021
Today is International Women's Day! Since the International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11th February, we've been highlighting many of our female scientists on twitter. Click 'read more' for a roundup!
Walking All Over Cancer
2 March 2021
Several of our scientists and staff have pledged to walk 10,000 steps a day in March for Cancer Research UK's Walk All Over Cancer campaign. One of those making the commitment is Dr Amy Tibbo. Amy is a postdoc here who's studying why some prostate cancers return despite surgery. She's inspired to take on the challenge by her own gran's experience with breast cancer.
Publication Highlights: January 2021
The Rho GTPase RAC1 is implicated in cell proliferation and is a potential target in cancer treatment. However, it is also required for normal intestinal homeostasis, so direct targeting of RAC1 could negatively impact that homeostasis. As an alternative approach to direct targeting, Karen Pickering, together with fellow authors, tested indirect targeting of RAC1 via other proteins that affect it, namely Vav2/3 and Tiam1 (A RAC-GEF network critical for early intestinal tumourigenesis). Deletion of all three of these genes profoundly suppressed hyperproliferation, tumourigenesis and RAC1 activity, and importantly, did so without impacting normal intestinal function.
John Le Quesne joins the Beatson Institute
29th January 2021
We would like to extend a warm welcome to Professor John Le Quesne, who recently joined the Beatson Institute. John joins us from the MRC Toxicology Unit in Leicester, and he comes to Glasgow as Mazumdar-Shaw Professor of Molecular Pathology.
Publication Highlights: Nov/Dec 2020
In a preprint available on bioRxiv (Absent expansion of pericentral hepatocytes and altered physiology in Axin2CreERT2 mice), postdoc Stephanie May and fellow researchers at the Beatson Institute reconcile discrepancies found in previous lineage tracing studies of hepatocytes. Using a CreERT2 construct knocked into the endogenous Axin2 locus, the team found no evidence of expansion of the labelled hepatocytes. They also report that this mutant allele results in profound perturbation of the Wnt pathway and physiology in the mouse.
Top tips for involving patients in your research
November 2020
As CRUK's Natalia Bartolome Diez put it, 'When done well, patient involvement can improve the quality and relevance of research, and is increasingly becoming a funding application requirement.' CRUK has asked researchers and people affected by cancer for their top tips on getting patient involvement right in all types and stages of research.
Here's a brief rundown of what they found:
1. Start early
The earlier you start planning patient involvement in your study, the more likely you are to involve the right people at the right time, using the most appropriate methods. Starting early helps you to gain deeper insights from the people you involve. It gives you time to embed their ideas in your research and make impactful changes as a result.
2. Take time to plan
The key to involving people affected by cancer meaningfully is planning. Taking time to think about the why, what, when and how of patient engagement will help you to identify key areas of your research that will benefit from patient involvement, and what this involvement should look like.
'Notify charity patient involvement partners at the earliest opportunity to develop your patient involvement plan effectively and with the greatest amount of advice and support' – Precision Panc Researcher
3. Involve the right people
You must find people affected by cancer who are able to give you the insight and information you need. Be clear about the requirements of the role and identify the skills, experience and personal attributes that the people participating in your activity will need to have.
4. Provide lay information
Explaining your study and general research topic to the people you are involving in your research will enable them to accurately feed into discussions. Information should be provided in clear, succinct, plain English. Don't assume that everyone you involve has the same abilities.
5. Establish ways of working
Ensuring that you and the people affected by cancer who become involved in your research feel comfortable and have positive experiences from the start is vital to encourage quality insight and feedback. It can be intimidating to enter a room full of researchers and muster the courage to dispute elements of their research or make suggestions. Therefore, the researchers and participants in involvement activities should agree on ways of working.
'During these partnerships of people affected by cancer and researchers, you find that it is the person that is being treated and not just the illness' – Patient Representative
6. Don't reinvent the wheel
Make full use of the resources available from different charities, rather than trying to create a new way of doing patient involvement. CRUK can help you identify involvement opportunities at any stage of your research and support you in their delivery.
'I was really impressed by my visit to the CRUK Cancer Insight Panel – they provided a unique perspective on my research plans and I came away buzzing with new ideas and inspiration' – Translational Researcher
7. Always provide feedback
Many people affected by cancer start doing patient involvement because they want to 'give back' and improve outcomes for future patients with cancer. Patient involvement empowers them to influence change and provides a sense of purpose. For this reason, it is important that those involved are made aware of the impact and consequences their feedback and insight had on research.
The above is an abbreviated version of CRUK's Research Feature. Click here to read the full article.
Publication Highlights: October 2020
In a pre-print available on BioRxiv ("RAL GTPases mediate EGFR/MAPK signalling-driven intestinal stem cell proliferation and tumorigenesis upstream of RAS activation"), Julia Cordero and Glasgow cancer scientists uncover a new role for Ras-like (RAL) protein in intestinal tumour growth. Beyond acting as a RAS effector, RAL stimulated the activation and internalisation of EGFR, a receptor commonly overexpressed in intestinal cancer. Hence, targeting RAL function could be an effective therapeutic approach.
David Bryant awarded UKRI-funded Future Leaders Fellowship
From University of Glasgow press release (https://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_757602_en.html:
Dr David Bryant has been awarded £1.2m to undertake new research into colorectal carcinoma, beginning the OrgTIP project which will look at how inhibiting Phosphoinositide-modifying enzymes (PIP-MEs) could help to combat the disease. PIP-MEs are a family of genes that are commonly altered in many cancers, but particularly in bowel cancer. In bowel cancer, the PIP-MEs become uncontrolled to the extent they no longer work, or work when they shouldn't. The OrgTIP project will look at how to target the altered PIP-MEs without damaging normal cells.
National Mouse Genetics Network
The Medical Research Council (MRC) is investing more than £20m in a major new network in mouse genetics for disease modelling to accelerate our understanding of human disease and improve diagnosis and treatments. Here, Professor Owen Sansom, Director of the National Mouse Genetics Network, writes about his vision for the new network, the exciting opportunity for the UK, and plans to engage with the community.
Publication Highlights: September 2020
Luke Tweedy, Robert Insall and colleagues at the Beatson report in Science ("Seeing around corners: Cells solve mazes and respond at a distance using attractant breakdown") that cells navigate complex environments such as man-made labyrinths by following and leaving chemical 'breadcrumbs', allowing pursuing cells to instantly find the shortest path and to avoid dead ends. This study helps us to understand how the environment and signals produced by other cells cue the direction of cancer spread.
CRUK Commercial Partnerships publishes its 2019/20 Annual Review
CRUK Commercial Partnerships acts as the meeting point between the charity's funded research and industry. It helps to accelerate the translation of research into products for patient benefit through the development and commercialisation of exciting new discoveries. In addition, any revenue received through its commercial partnerships is reinvested back into developing lifesaving research.
