A Balfron scientist is at the forefront of a £1.5million study which he hopes could lead to better and kinder treatments for bowel cancer.
The bugs which live inside our bodies are the focus of the £1,559,862 Cancer Research UK project, led by Dr Johan Vande Voorde, to discover their impact on the disease.
Our intestines are home to a diverse range of microbiotic life that helps us digest food and stay healthy.
However, if that balance is disrupted it can lead to negative effects on our health.
How this mix of fungi, bacteria and viruses, known as the gut microbiome, behaves when cancer is present is a growing area of cancer research.
This new study aims to map the gut microbiome and establish how its metabolic processes affect cancer cells and treatments.
The researchers hope the study can help identify vulnerabilities in bowel cancer and potentially new biomarkers which could help identify cancer earlier.
Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK with around 16,800 deaths in the UK every year.
Scotland is disproportionately affected by the disease with around 4,000 people being diagnosed each year.
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Project leader Dr Vande Voorde, of the University of Glasgow, who lives in Balfron, said: “Our gut is home to a collective of micro-organisms including fungi, bacteria and viruses held in a delicate balance. Our study will examine differences in this environment when a tumour is present. The gut microbiome is an important source of nutrients which can be different in cancer patients. We want to compare the differences between healthy and cancer patients and see what impacts this may have on the disease.”
He added: “I have been doing research since 2008, 15-16 years now, and I’m really interested in this connection between bugs living in our bodies and how they change and affect our health. I want to develop better and kinder treatments for cancer patients, to come up with a treatment that is not only more effective but kinder on the patients.
“Current cancer treatments can be very harsh and patients can be left with side effects so we hope to look at this from this angle and to develop new therapies.
“I moved to Scotland in 2015. Scotland is a real hub for cancer research and particularly for bowel cancer so it is a great opportunity to become part of this network.”
As a scientist rather than a medical doctor, Johan does not see patients but seeks to get a better understanding of disease.
However, the course of the project will also be led by the experiences and thoughts of patient groups.
“I’m hoping that over the course of this project we are going to be in a position to develop a treatment strategy that can hopefully be integrated into the clinic,” he continued.
“The biggest goal for a researcher is that. We hope it is going to be advancing our knowledge to a point that we can think about the next step – from the bench to the bedside of the patients.”
How we convert food into energy and build and repair our bodies are just some the chemical processes that take place inside us. These metabolic processes are also needed by cancer cells as they seek the nutrients they need to divide and replicate.
Executive Director of Research and Innovation at Cancer Research UK, Iain Foulkes, said: “Evidence suggests that more adults under 50 may be getting cancer than ever before, particularly in cancers of the digestive system. We are delighted to fund projects such as this which will hopefully shed light on bowel cancer and help us find new ways to tackle this disease.”
Dr Vande Voorde obtained his PhD in the laboratory of Jan Balzarini (KU Leuven, Belgium) where he studied the impact of tumour-associated bacteria on chemotherapy. In 2015, he joined Eyal Gottlieb’s group at the CRUK Scotland Institute studying metabolic vulnerabilities of colorectal cancer. In 2018, he joined the team of Owen Sansom, director of the CRUK Scotland Institute, as part of Cancer Grand Challenges Team Rosetta. He set up his independent research group at the University of Glasgow in 2024.