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Project Update - Professor David Stott is to retire
Funding for Professor David Stott’s work investigating the potential of using ‘immunotherapy’ to help treat breast cancer closed on 1st August 2009. His project will continue as scheduled until the end of September, when Professor Stott is due to retire.
The gifts you have made to this project, including the gift aid, have been ring-fenced to support Professor Stott’s project. We spoke with the Professor to hear what donations from the public mean to him.
"I would like to thank very much indeed all of the donors that have made an invaluable contribution. It simply couldn’t be done without you and there are some extremely promising result."
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What this project has achieved
Professor Stott’s exciting work has focussed on tricking the immune system into fighting cancer, a new approach in this field.
"We have developed an artificial ‘fusion’ protein which fools the immune system into recognising and acting against both the target protein and the cancer. With some results at this early stage indicating some very positive outcomes, I would consider the project a great success."
His work will be displayed at the European Conference on Immunology in Berlin this coming September where he hopes to attract more interest into his method, which has the potential to be applied to other areas.
"This approach could potentially be used to treat other types of cancer, any which feature the same target molecule - ovarian cancer is a good example. And the same principle could also potentially be applied to other cancers by developing new fusion proteins. Coming to the end of my research, I hope to have some of the answers that may ultimately lead to new ways to prevent or treat cancer."
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What’s this project about?
Survival rates for breast cancer have dramatically improved in recent decades, but more than 12,300 women still die from the disease each year in the UK. Professor Stott is investigating ways to stimulate a patient’s own immune system to recognise and kill their breast cancer cells. This exciting area of research, called ‘immunotherapy’, could open up new possibilities for treating the UK’s most common cancer.
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What is the science behind this project?
The immune system protects the body against infections from foreign invaders, such as bacteria. But unfortunately it isn’t very efficient at killing cancer cells because they are our own cells that have gone wrong. A potential new approach to treat the disease is to harness a person’s immune system to attack their cancer cells.
Many different kinds of white blood cell are involved in the body’s immune response. One type, called B-cells, produce antibodies. Scientists believe that antibodies may play a vital role in our immune response to cancer. B-cells can recognise certain molecules on the surface of cancer cells. This triggers them to make specific antibodies that stick to the cancer cells, tagging them for destruction by other immune cells.
The ultimate goal of Professor Stott’s research is to develop vaccines that train a patient’s own B cells to recognise their breast cancer cells more effectively. These so-called therapeutic vaccines will hopefully encourage the body to mount a powerful immune response against the disease.
These vaccines could be used alongside other treatments to stop cancers growing. They could also help kill any cancer cells that remain after other treatments have stopped working, and make the cancer less likely to come back.
Looking to the future
Professor Stott’s team is currently carrying out crucial lab studies to understand the natural immune response against breast cancer. This will lay the foundations for developing new and effective vaccines to treat, and possibly even prevent, the disease in the future.
For more information about breast cancer you can visit our CancerHelp UK website breast cancer pages.
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Meet the man behind the science
You’ve already heard about Professor David Stott’s breast cancer research in Glasgow, now you can meet the man behind the science.
Hear why he cares about beating breast cancer and his own experience of prostate cancer in his new video.
Funding has now closed for this project.
You can visit the MyProjects Homepage to view other projects that need your funding, such as Professor Cuzick’s breast cancer prevention trial.
If you have set up a Giving Group for this project, you can pledge any future donations to a new project by logging in to the "MyProfile" area in MyProjects and clicking on the "Edit My Group"’ option. Visit the FAQs to find out more.
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