Cancer is a European public health problem of overwhelming human and economic significance. There is now an improved molecular understanding of the key genetic, biochemical and cellular changes leading to cancer, in significant part due to the efforts of diverse groups of world-class EU-based scientists. With the completion of the human genome sequence imminent, it is now timely to initiate a major European co-ordinated effort to translate fundamental scientific knowledge about cancer into safer, more effective therapies and improved early diagnostic procedures. The cellular immortality enzyme telomerase (one of the most promising universal cancer markers) and associated telomere maintenance mechanisms, represent novel anti-cancer targets of enormous therapeutic and diagnostic potential. In MOL CANCER MED, we have established a multinational EU translational cancer research consortium, in which talented cancer geneticists and molecular biologists will interact with prominent pharmacologists, clinicians and pathologists to develop these exciting new cellular targets into measurable pre-clinical advances, within a 3.5-year time-frame. The Project has been structured into three, highly interactive Areas of Activity, involving the fundamental evaluation and pre-clinical validation of: (i) TELOMERASE as a target for cancer treatment and diagnosis based on new molecular knowledge about its expression and function, (ii) associated DOWNSTREAM TELOMERE MAINTENANCE MECHANISMS as additional targets for novel drug design, and (iii) new ANTICANCER DRUGS based on these targets. The Consortium will bring to bear diverse and complementary technological know-how of considerable power to deliver the above primary objectives. Effective management will maximize synergies across MOL CANCER MED in order to produce genuine improvements in the design of new treatments that promise to be active against a broad spectrum of common human malignancies.
Keywords:
cancer, therapy, genome, telomerase, diagnosis, drugs, gene therapy, immunotherapy
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