The Wistar Institute has been awarded more than US$12 million National Cancer Institute (NCI) Program Project Grant (P01), a highly competitive five-year grant that includes a cross section of researchers from various disciplines and institutions throughout the country. (US$1=RM4.52)
The multidisciplinary team led by Wistar scientists is exploring the role of Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) in epithelial cancers. Epithethelial cells form functional structures in organ tissue throughout the human body; and are often the site for solid organ cancers, including the most common cancers, which are known as carcinomas.
The new research will focus on basic questions about how EBV infection of normal epithelial cells transforms them into cancer-cells, in which scientists intend to build on this research to identify better and more selective therapeutic targets.
According to Wistar in a statement, the grant will fund three main research projects, which will look at how EBV establishes a long-term infection within epithelial cells; study how it causes genetic and metabolic changes to trigger cancer growth; and use these findings to investigate new therapeutic strategies.
“We are investigating unexplored aspects of EBV and malignancies, potentially uncovering unique characteristics or pathways that can be targeted for therapeutic intervention.
“This fresh perspective could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and innovative treatment strategies for EBV and epithelial malignancies,” said The Wistar Institute associate professor of the Gene Expression & Regulation Program of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, Italo Tempera.
The project brings together scientists from The Wistar Institute and Harvard University, including experts in epigenetics, metabolomics and drug discovery and the first time researchers from this variety of disciplines have combined their efforts to focus entirely on the EBV-epithelial cancer link.
EBV is one of the most common human viruses, infecting an estimated 95 per cent of people by the time they reach adulthood. Symptoms are usually mild, and most people recover within a few weeks, but the virus can remain latent in the human body for years or even decades, and it causes some people to develop cancer later in life.
While research has historically focused on lymphomas, EBV-linked epithelial cancers are both more common and more deadly. Epithelial cancers represent 75 per cent of the 200,000 EBV-related cancer cases diagnosed each year, and these cancers also have higher mortality rates and treatment failures.
Source: BERNAMA News Agency
