Population-based Studies
Studies of genetic susceptibility to selected common cancers - breast, prostate, ovarian, oesophagus, stomach - are carried out in close collaboration with the genetic epidemiology groups in the Strangeways Research Laboratories led by Professor Bruce Ponder, Doug Easton and Paul Pharoah. The emphasis is on the genes that underlie polygenic predisposition.
A genome-wide association study in breast cancer, using 266,000 SNP markers, has just been completed. This has identified five new susceptibility genes. Similar studies in prostate and ovarian cancer are in progress. Bruce Ponder's group in CRI are focussed on the development of phenotypic assays that can be applied on an epidemiological scale, both as risk markers and as a starting point to search for rare genetic variants that underlie the phenotype.
Other studies between CRI and Strangeways relate to:
- The functional analysis of predisposing genetic variants through SNP studies
- Pharmacogenetic studies in cancer therapy trials
- Studies of the relationship between germline genotype and the somatic molecular changes in cancers
The Group Leader in this area is:
