Experts at Dundee University working to combat cancer have been given a £1.3 million boost.
Dr Adrian Saurin has been awarded the funding to explore how the body’s cells replicate themselves correctly and why this goes wrong in cancer.
Dr Saurin, of the School of Medicine, has received the funding from Cancer Research UK to carry out fundamental research into the mechanism of cellular division. Four new posts will also be created as part of the six-year study.
When division occurs, the new cells should be exact copies of the original but this process goes wrong in the vast majority of cancer cells.
The result is that cells within the same tumour often have a genetic makeup that is diverse and constantly changing. This is important because it allow tumours to rapidly evolve and overcome any challenges they may face.
Dr Saurin and his team hope to understand the molecular basis for these errors by focussing on an area that is currently not well understood but which may have implications for other diseases.
It is well established that two major classes of enzymes kinases and phosphatases control almost every signalling response in the body at some level but, until now, they have been almost exclusively studied independently.
Dr Saurin explained: “There is a huge body of work to show how kinases turn signals on and we are slowly beginning to understand how phosphatases work to switch these signals off.
“If all signals were simple binary on/off switches then we would soon have a good appreciation for how they work.”
Nell Barrie, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “We’re delighted to be funding Dr Saurin’s research in Dundee. His work will help us better understand the complex process of cell division, and some of the ways this can go wrong in cancer.”