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Friday 18 February 2005

Nottingham Trent University to manage European cancer research project

Nottingham Trent University has been chosen to lead a pioneering European cancer research project worth €4.2m (£3m). Scientists at the university will be using the latest technology to try to identify abnormal proteins (cancer biomarkers) in the blood or the tissue of patients with ovarian, breast or prostate cancer that could indicate whether they are likely to benefit from vaccine therapy.

Patients at clinical centres across Europe will be asked to take part in the study and the response of patients’ vaccine therapy will be closely monitored. The identification of new “cancer biomarkers” could make it possible to ascertain from a blood sample whether a patient has the ability to respond to a certain type of vaccination and could lead to finding new ways of producing vaccines to stimulate the body’s immune system to kill off cancer cells.

Nottingham Trent University will manage the study from its Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Centre, and will receive more than €1m towards the research. A further 13 European partners made up of research institutes and universities will play their own special and vital role. All the data they generate will be fed through the university and Loreus, a company based at its Clifton Campus which will be responsible for processing and analysing the results of the study.

The project, European Network for the Identification and Validation of Antigens and Biomarkers in Cancer and their Application in Clinical Tumour Immunology (ENACT) will be funded by the European Union for three years.

Professor Robert Rees, from Nottingham Trent University’s School of Biomedical and Natural Sciences, said: “We will be using state-of-the-art technology to identify abnormal blood proteins and the immune response of patients against their cancer. If a patient has these proteins or shows a particular immune profile it may in the future help us decide the most appropriate form of treatment.”

He added: “This research will also be extremely helpful in assisting diagnoses and the knowledge we obtain could provide us the opportunity to develop new further diagnostic and predictive tests.”

ENDS

Notes for editors: The project is being funded by the European Union’s Sixth Framework programme which enables scientists to work together in extensive networks on pure and clinical research.

Professor Rees is Dean of The School and co-ordinator of the programme and heads the Oncology Group at Nottingham Trent which is funded by more than £1m of external grants from the EU, Kay Kendall Leukaemia Fund, The John and Lucille Van Geest Foundation, EPSRC, MRC and various cancer charities. The team of 15 scientists are dedicated to trying to identify cancer markers and developing cancer vaccines.

ENACT partners include: