Investigating novel hypoxia inducible factor (HIF) regulatory pathways in cancer

癌症导致英国四分之一的死亡（英国癌症研究中心），是一种多种疾病的疾病，每种癌症类型都有不同的遗传和生物学特征。开发可用于改善一线治疗的新治疗干预措施的需求尚未得到满足。在癌症中发现的一个统一特征是缺氧（低氧水平）缺氧导致缺氧诱导因子（hif）的激活增加。缺氧和HIF激活与一线治疗（如放疗）的治疗抵抗和不良预后相关。虽然HIF本身被认为是一个具有挑战性的药物靶点，但阻止HIF在癌症中的激活对于开发新的抗癌药物是一种有吸引力的策略。因此，阐明HIF活性调控和HIF介导的肿瘤进展的细胞过程具有特殊的治疗意义。该项目的总体目标将是描述从遗传筛选中鉴定出的新的HIF调控基因。

Cancer causes one in four of all deaths in the UK (Cancer Research UK) and is a disease of many diseases, each cancer type has a different genetic and biological profile. There is an unmet need for developing new therapeutic interventions that can be used to improve front-line treatments. A unifying feature found in cancers is hypoxia (low oxygen levels) Hypoxia leads to increased activation of hypoxia inducible factors (HIFs). Hypoxia and HIF activation is associated with treatment resistance and poor patient prognosis using front-line treatments (e.g. radiotherapy). While HIF itself is considered a challenging drug target, preventing HIF activation in cancer is an attractive strategy for the development of new anticancer agents. Thus elucidating the cellular processes underlying the regulation of HIF activity and HIF-mediated tumour progression are of particular interest therapeutically. The overall goal of the project will be to characterise novel HIF regulatory genes identified from a genetic screen.