Radiotherapy study at USQ a world first

USQ Bioinformatics Senior Lecturer, Dr Jesus Lopez, will lead a world first study that will look at genes and their responsiveness to radiotherapy in bladder cancer sufferers.

The study will be undertaken from next year and is of great importance to bladder cancer patients worldwide.

'When treating bladder cancer there are two types of treatment, radiotherapy and removing the bladder,' Dr Lopez said.

'About 45 percent of bladder cancer patients require radiotherapy or surgery and radiotherapy has a failure rate of 50 percent, while surgery (bladder removal) diminishes quality of life considerably.

'What we want to do is use Bioinformatics to test patient's genes and see if we can predict whether or not radiation will work and discover which genes are involved in tumour-death.'

Support for the research has come from abroad, with interested stakeholders in the UK keeping an eye on the results.

'The project is in collaboration with Cancer Research UK, The University of Ulster and the University of Leicester,' Dr Lopez said.

'Patients used in the study will be from the UK, while we will use bioinformatics to analyse data here.'

Dr Lopez has also received backing from the Australian Research Council (ARC) for the study after receiving a Discovery Grant worth $170,000.

'These Discovery Grants are very competitive and are not only based on the project that you want to do but also on your background,' he said.

'It is a vote of confidence and if you get some promising results there is an opportunity to be continually funded by the ARC.'

The research team now have three years to complete phase one of the study, which will involve analysing thousands of genes.

'There are about 30,000 genes in every person, which means that each time we do an experiment we are looking at 30,000 different values.

'Although we will start in 2007, we have been given three years to complete phase one.'

Media Contact: Josh Ada, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 1628, 0403 643 192