The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has received $1 million in new cancer research funding from the W.M. Keck Foundation to study the link between common viruses and cancer.
The new research funding will allow Hutchinson Center researchers to sequence human DNA and analyze which changes due to environmental exposure are common among people with the same disease.
The new study will focus on the ways in which common pathogens affect the immune system in the long term. It will focus on 17 common bacteria and viruses but hopes to expand to encompass a more diverse analysis of diseases in the future.
(image of Harlan Robins courtesy of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center)
Harlan Robins, a researcher of Computational Biology and Public Health Sciences at the Hutchinson Center, is leading the study. Robins has said that numerous cancers are known to be caused by viruses, and yet detecting cancer relies on detecting a tiny, almost invisible, tumor instead of focusing on the patient's immune system and exposure to viruses.
According to Robins, focusing on the immune system is an ideal way to detect cancer in its early stages because "Long before you can see a tumor, your immune system's job is to respond."
These new research programs at Fred Hutch are designed to sequence antibody genes and facilitate data acquisition for doctors using the latest in computing technologies. These new data have the potential to help research scientists and medical professionals detect cancer earlier by better monitoring the immune system.
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