Scottish university awarded

Cancer Research UK has awarded grants of £11m to scientists at the University of Dundee, Scotland, to fund programmes of research taking place over the next three to five years.

Dundee is one of the foremost centres for biomedical research in the UK, and the money has been allocated to fund the work of seven principal investigators and their teams at the university.

Three of the research grants, worth more than £8m, have been awarded to researchers at the Cancer Research UK Molecular Pharmacology Unit, directed by Professor Roland Wolf. Eleven new cancer researchers will be recruited, including Dr Steven Everett and his team who will be relocating from the Gray Cancer Institute near London.

Professor Wolf and his team are investigating a group of enzymes, called cytochrome P450s, that play an important role in the way drugs are processed by the body. Levels of these enzymes vary between individuals and affect their response to anticancer treatments.

Dr Steven Everett and his team, whose work is focused on the factors involved in the uptake, metabolism and detoxification of chemicals, will work in collaboration with Professor Wolf. Using the cytochrome P450 enzymes as targets, the researchers aim to produce new and more tailored anticancer drugs, with fewer side effects.

Dr Stephen Keyse and his team, also in the Cancer Research UK Molecular Pharmacology Unit, are looking at enzymes in the MAP kinase pathway. These key enzymes help cells to respond to changes in their environment and are often faulty in cancer, including breast, lung, colon and pancreatic cancer. Dr Keyse has been awarded a new research programme to unravel the exact role of these enzymes in tumour development and identify those that could be targeted by new treatments.

The remaining four research grants have been awarded to scientists based in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Dundee.