Annex 3
Press Release announcing Cancer Genome
Project
A REVOLUTIONARY PROJECT TO IDENTIFY CANCER
GENES
A major initiative aimed at identifying the genes
that cause cancer is to be established in the UK. Scientists are
setting up a £10 million Cancer Genome Project, which will
use the rapidly emerging data from the Human Genome Project to
find the gene abnormalities associated with all forms of human
cancers. The research will provide vital information for understanding
the abnormal biological processes in human cancers and hence assist
drug development programmes to combat the disease.
Funded by the Wellcome Trust, the world's largest
medical research charity, the Cancer Genome Project will be led
by Professor Michael Stratton and Dr Richard Wooster of the Institute
of Cancer Research, and sited at the Sanger Centre in Hinxton,
Cambridgeshire—already renowned for its leading role in
the International Human Genome Project.
The Sanger Centre forms part of an international
consortium which is sequencing the DNA of humankind—our
genetic blueprint that contains approximately 100,000 genes. This
sequence data will provide Professor Stratton and his team with
a vital framework on which to build the Cancer Genome Project.
This landmark project will be one of the first
examples of how the complete information emerging from the Human
Genome Project can be used in understanding human disease. It
will provide an opportunity to develop the necessary technology
by combining the expertise of biologists and geneticists with
the enormous experimental and analytical power of a world leading
genome research facility. The technological advances made through
the Cancer Genome Project will impact on the study of other human
diseases such as heart disease and diabetes.
Commenting on the project, Professor Stratton
said: "Abnormalities in DNA sequence underlie the development
of all types of cancer. The data emerging from the Human Genome
Project will give us the normal blueprint against which we can
then compare the DNA sequence in cancers and so work out which
genes are abnormal."
"The daunting challenge is that the human
genome sequence is huge, composed of approximately 3,000 million
letters of code. This award from the Wellcome Trust will enable
us to develop approaches which will allow systematic examination
of the whole genome in large numbers of cancers and thus detect
as many of the abnormal genes as possible. Ultimately, identification
of these genes will highlight the weak points in cancer cells
with which we can interfere and treat the disease."
At present, it is impossible to pinpoint the
genomic location of many cancer-associated genes and often only
large, poorly defined areas on the "gene map" can be
identified as having a link with the disease. The Cancer Genome
Project will make use of the entire human genome sequence data
generated by the Sanger Centre together with very high throughput
mutation detection techniques to adopt a global and systematic
approach to the identification of cancer genes.
Given the resources available to the Wellcome
Trust and its support of the Sanger Centre, the Trust is in a
unique position to offer the facilities for a project which represents
a natural progression of the Trust's substantial investment in
genomics.
Commenting on the award, Dr Michael Dexter,
Director of the Wellcome Trust, said: "The Trust is committed
to the Human Genome Project at the Sanger Centre and has been
since its inception in 1992. With completion of this project scheduled
for 2003, we want to ensure that research is directed into exploiting
genomic data to maximise potential benefits for the future of
healthcare. The Cancer Genome Project is an excellent example
of how the research community can use sequencing data and focus
on specific disease genes."
The Wellcome Trust's longstanding policy of
not funding research that is exclusively based on cancer remains
in place. The Trust will continue to provide support for proposals
which may include cancer only in the context of exploring fundamental
biological questions. In addition, the Wellcome Trust will continue
to work in collaboration with funding agencies on research programmes
associated with cancer when appropriate.
NOTES TO
EDITORS
1. Professor Michael Stratton and Dr Richard
Wooster are cancer geneticists and have been based at the Institute
of Cancer Research for eight and two years respectively. Together,
in 1995, they discovered the BRCA2 gene. Inherited mutations in
BRCA2 greatly increase the risk of developing breast cancer.
2. Additional support for the Cancer Genome
Project will be provided by the Institute of Cancer Research,
the Cancer Research Campaign, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and the
Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust.
3. The Sanger Centre (http://www.sanger.as.uk)
is one of the world's largest genome sequencing centres. It has
funding from the Wellcome Trust to sequence a third of the 3000
million base human genome, which will be the biggest contribution
to the world-wide Human Genome Project by any single institute.
The Sanger Centre and the Wellcome Trust have been at the forefront
of efforts to keep the human sequence data in the public domain
to allow equal access by all to our common genetic heritage.
4. The Wellcome Trust has a longstanding
policy of not funding research which is exclusively clinical cancer
research—that is, research which is only relevant to cancer
and cannot be applied to other diseases and fundamental biological
processes. Examples of past Trust research associated with cancer
include: support to the Sanger Centre who collaborated with Professor
Stratton and Dr Wooster in research to isolate the breast cancer
gene, BRCA2; and joint funding of the Wellcome/CRC Institute for
Developmental Biology.
5. The Wellcome Trust is the world's largest
medical research charity with an annual spend of £400 million.
The Wellcome Trust supports more than 3,000 researchers at 300
locations in 30 different countries—laying the foundations
for the development of new and better treatment of diseases in
the next century and helping to maintain the UK's reputation as
one of the world's leading scientific nations. As well as funding
major initiatives in the public understanding of science, the
Wellcome Trust is the country's leading supporter of research
into the history of medicine.
20 October 1999
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