$24 million funding boost for colon and breast cancer research

A team from the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics has just secured $12 million in research funding from the National Institutes for Health in the US.

Professor Mark Jenkins (Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics) and his research group, including Associate Professor Dan Buchanan (Department of Clinical Pathology) and Dr. Aung Win (Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics) will be leading the next five years of the Colon Cancer Family Registry, an international collaboration established to gather information about who develops colorectal cancer (cancer of the colon and rectum), who doesn’t and how to use genetics and lifestyle factors to identify those at high risk of the disease.

Also, in the same round, the Breast Cancer Family Registry was refunded $12m to follow-up approximately 30,000 participants.  The study design is similar to the Colon Cancer Family Registry and has recruited participants from the same countries. This grant has been awarded Columbia University, with Professor John Hopper (Centre of Epidemiology and Biostatistics) leading the Australian arm.

Professor Hopper was one of the creators of both of these registries (along with Graham Giles from the Cancer Council of Victoria). Together these Colon and Breast Cancer Family Registries have now received 25 years of continual NIH funding which is a credit to their value to cancer research contributed by the tens of thousands of cohort participants.