The project
The Accelerator Award enables team science across Europe. Funded through a partnership between Cancer Research UK, AIRC and FC AECC, it supports the creation of high quality tools and resources that will unlock new research into unanswered questions about cancer.
The project, led by Professor Jesús San Miguel at Clínica Universidad de Navarra, is a collaboration of 13 Research Institutions from the UK, Spain and Italy focused on improving early detection and intervention of blood cancers, mainly Monoclonal Gammopathies, Leukemia and Lymphoma.
The overall goal of the project is to better characterise the initial stages of these cancers, to help develop new precision therapies that shift the current treatment of these three blood cancer groups: focus on treating the cause of the disease, rather than the symptoms. This will help also tailoring treatments that manage minimal residue diseases (cancerous cells that remain after treatment), instead of waiting for a relapse.
Identifying precise biomarkers of early transformation
EDITOR will identify biomarkers for each hematological disease, through databases comprising over 5,000 patient samples and using mouse animal models.
Understanding & overcoming initial pre-malignant resistance
Previous projects have characterised tumour cells on bulk. EDITOR innovative approach will use genomic and cytomic studies to consider the context and heterogeneity of the tumours in normal, premalignant and minimal residue states.