University of Birmingham and Royal Shakespeare Company to host conference in 2018

Charity Cancer Research UK has awarded the University of Birmingham £1.5 million to fund a five-year research programme aimed at finding new treatments for bowel cancer. The pioneering research, the first of its kind in the UK, will see scientists taking samples of 200 patients' bowel cancer in order to then grow avatars - or mini tumours - in the laboratory. The avatars will then be exposed to over 2,000 drugs and treatments, some of which have never been previously tested. Using genomic sequencing, scientists will also test the avatars to establish whether certain genes can make individuals predisposed to bowel cancer and whether these genes can be modified to reduce a person's risk to the disease. Dr Andrew Beggs , of the Institute of Cancer and Genomic Sciences at the University of Birmingham, said: "This is exciting and pioneering research, made possible thanks to this generous award from Cancer Research UK. Bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK and effects around 30,000 people a year, however only 60 to 70 per cent of people survive so therefore there is a desperate need to develop new treatments and improve existing ones. By growing mini tumour models or avatars of bowel cancer, we can use them to test whether specific treatments work on bowel cancer with the hope that we can identify new treatments and ultimately save more lives.