- The European project PanCanRisk, with participation from the EBI-EMBL and Protein Logic, investigates new mechanisms of hereditary transmission of cancer in order to improve prevention and diagnosis
- The European consortium, led by Ángel Carracedo’s team at the Galician Public Foundation of Genomic Medicine, will meet this week in Santiago de Compostela to evaluate the project’s achievements
In 2014, an ambitious European genetic research project started with the main objective of identifying new hereditary cancer risk factors. Led from Santiago de Compostela by the team of Dr. Ángel Carracedo at the Galician Public Foundation of Genomic Medicine, PanCanRisk –Personalised Bioinformatics For Global Cancer Susceptibility Identification & Clinical Management– involves over 20 researchers from six institutes and reference research centers across Europe, two of which are based here in Cambridge.
The project is based on the fact that current technologies allow us to obtain and analyze large amounts of genetic data quickly and relatively easily. Noting the need for an adapted statistical analysis, they propose to improve the current algorithms by developing new methods. The goal: to find new genes related to the risk of developing cancer among the tide of currently available data.
The solidity of the approach and the excellence of the research teams involved warranted funding for 2.9M € from the European Union H2020 program for a three-year project.
In addition to the large-scale statistical analysis, the project also considers the validation of the results in real samples of patients obtained from usual clinical processes, such as colon and breast screening programs. Subsequently, functional models that can be applied to clinical practice will be designed, aimed to improve detection, prevention and diagnostic protocols.
Today, the PanCanRisk team faces the final stretch of the project. On June 18th an 19th, an international meeting will be held in Santiago de Compostela to share the progress and results obtained. We will know then if PanCanRisk can deliver on their promise to deliver an earlier diagnosis and more tailored risk screening strategies.
Where: Santiago de Compostela (España) When: 18/09/2017 – 20/09/2017
