A research project led by scientists at Oxford University has been awarded almost £180,000 by Target Ovarian Cancer UK.
Dr Ahmed Ashour Ahmed and Professor Stefan Knapp have been granted £175,299 over three years to establish whether the inhibition of the enzymes FES and FER improves the efficacy of paclitaxel (Taxol) based chemotherapy.
Paclitaxel offers a treatment for ovarian and breast cancer by interfering with microtubules which are involved in cell division, although some tumours become resistant to the therapy and can start to grow again. However, inhibiting certain proteins stabilises these microtubules and so appears to make ovarian cancer cells more sensitive to the drug.
Dr Ahmed, a Fellow of St Hugh’s College, said, “This funding will allow us to test whether amplifying the effect of paclitaxel on microtubules may result in greater cancer cell death as this could potentially be translated to better therapies for ovarian cancer patients”.
Target Ovarian Cancer is a national charity which aims to support those with ovarian cancer and to further research into treatment of the disease. In this latest funding scheme, a total of £380,296 was split between three projects, which also included an investigation into whether chemotherapy can be effective in palliative care.
The winning projects were selected by the trustees of the charity, on the advice of its Scientific Advisory Board, peer reviewers and lay reviewers, including women diagnosed with the disease. The SAB is chaired by Professor Henry Kirchener, an expert in gynaecological oncology from the University of Manchester.
In the UK, 6,500 new cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed each year, and 12 affected women die every day. Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women.
