DARWIN study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Discovery of Anti-tumour Remedies for Women’s cancer INterception (DARWIN Study)
IRAS ID
342605
Contact name
F Correia Martins
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University College London Hospital Trust
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Women’s cancers are biologically heterogeneous. Some tumours are mostly driven by acquired chromosomal gains/losses (eg. high-grade serous ovarian cancer, triple-negative breast cancer); others are predominantly driven by changes in the DNA code, called mutations, (eg. endometrioid endometrial cancer). Some women may carry hereditary alterations that predispose them to acquire a specific type of cancer. For example, carriers of BRCA1/2 mutations are at increased risk to develop the former type of tumours, whilst mutations in any of the mismatch repair genes, in the context of Lynch syndrome, predisposes to the latter. Understanding initiation and progression of these tumours by analysing normal, high-risk normal, pre-cancer, cancer samples, and matched tissues from other organs will inform new prevention or treatment strategies for women at risk of developing or already with a gynaecological cancer, respectively. The results from this study will inform not only management of women’s cancer but also other tumours driven by the same mechanisms.
We aim to compare original tissues and matched derived organoids (using multiple omics approach) in order to 1. validate how our culture method reproduces the biology of the original sample; 2. find new drivers of tumour initiation and progression. We will compare the findings between samples from high risk patient (eg. BRCA1 germline mutation) and low-risk samples and from cancer vs pre-cancer vs normal samples.
Furthermore, we will modulate tumour initiation in culture by introducing known genetic drivers of tumour progression in the cells and analysing its biological effect.
Simultaneously, we would like to analyse anonymised retrospective cohort of high-risk normal, pre-cancerous and cancerous tissues in order to identify early drivers of the disease and mechanistic associations and to inform possible preventative and treatment strategies.
Finally, we will collect blood from our participants to assess whether early changes present in the tissue can be captured in the blood.REC name
South East Scotland REC 02
REC reference
24/SS/0057
Date of REC Opinion
26 Jul 2024
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion