Cancer research funded

Dr Stuart Macgregor from QIMR’s Queensland Statistical Genetics Laboratory has been awarded a grant from Cancer Australia worth $521,000 over three years.

The grant will fund studies into the epigenetic changes involved in breast and ovarian cancer. Epigenetics is a growing field that examines changes to genetic information that are not encoded in the DNA sequence.

Dr Macgregor and his colleagues will investigate how methylation of DNA, a form of epigenetic information, in non-cancer tissue influences cancer risk.

Dr Macgregor’s area of primary interest is statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology. Within this field, he has had success working on a wide variety of diseases ranging from bipolar disorder through to cancers such as melanoma.

Cancer Australia is the Australian Government’s national cancer agency who are working to improve outcomes for people affected by cancer, by ensuring that national cancer control, prevention, treatment and care are evidence-based.

Further details of successful grant applications in the 2010 round of Cancer Australia’s Priority-driven Collaborative Cancer Research Scheme can be found on the Cancer Australia website – www.canceraustralia.gov.au