Hampshire scientists pioneering the future of Cancer treatments

7:00am Sunday 12th October 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

SOUTHAMPTON is leading the way when it comes to medicine. The city’s clinical research centre at Southampton General Hospital is one of the country’s top centres for the development and clinical trial of cancer treatments.

Only this week, Southampton University scientists based at the site announced the success of a revolutionary new treatment for testicular cancer.

Clinical trials in the city have found that a single injection of the chemotherapy drug is the best weapon against the most widespread strain of testicular cancer and helps prevent the disease returning.

Meanwhile, Southampton scientists have also been celebrating the success of a new prostate cancer vaccine, using patients’ own DNA to fight off the disease – helping confirm the city’s position as a leading centre for cancer research.

And these pioneering breakthroughs are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Southampton’s incredible achievements in the field of medicine.

Not only is the city a leading centre for vital cancer research (headed up by Cancer Research UK’s head clinician Professor Peter Johnson) but Southampton University’s school of medicine is internationally renowned for its research in the fields of neuroscience, genetics and asthma.

And that’s not all. Southampton’s internationally renowned cardiac centre at Southampton General Hospital is one of the largest and most successful in the UK, treating patients throughout southern England, Devon, Cornwall and the Channel Islands. The state-of-theart £60m centre – which houses a specialist intensive care unit – is celebrated as a centre of excellence for treating children and adolescents with congenital heart conditions.

Southampton is also the birthplace of children’s research charity Leukaemia Busters, set up by scientists David and Bee Flavell after the death of their son Simon from leukaemia in 1990.

Since then – and following a yearlong Daily Echo campaign – the couple have set up a research laboratory at Southampton General Hospital, dedicated to banishing childhood leukaemia forever.

Thanks to the tireless work of the Flavells and Leukaemia Busters, three new antibodybased drugs for acute leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma have been developed and tested in Southampton, leading experts to believe that they may have positive benefits for some leukaemia patients in the near future.

With such an amazing track record for medical breakthroughs it seems Southampton may already have achieved the elusive wow factor it has been striving for.

Cancer - Prof Peter Johnson

THE prostate cancer vaccine; the discovery of a “breast cancer gene”; the development of new cancer-fighting drugs. All medical breakthroughs made at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Research Centre in Southampton.

Many of the treatments used in Britain’s hospitals come from pioneering work carried out at the centre – one of the UK’s leading cancer research units.

It is famous for its work with DNA vaccines, introducing matter from tumours into the patients’ body to stimulate their immune system into fighting the disease.

Only this week Southampton scientists were celebrating the early success of a prostate cancer vaccine.

Professor Peter Johnson, head of Southampton’s clinical research centre and Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician, said: “This proves we can make things we’ve demonstrated in the laboratory happen in a clinical setting. It shows we can immobilise the immune system. Now we need to work on making those responses stronger.”

The city’s scientists are already working on the next generation of vaccines – the first in the world to give antibodies directly to the patient. Also this week, university experts hailed the importance of a new testicular cancer treatment – a pioneering chemotherapy injection, which could prevent the recurrence of the disease with a single jab.

Meanwhile, genetic research in the city has led to the discovery of a breast cancer gene. Professor Johnson and his team are now working hard to understand the signals inside cells that make breast cancer grow and how to turn them off.

“We’re in a very important phase of development,”

he said. “In 50 years I believe we’ll be detecting cancer very early and delivering intelligent, targeted treatments that will lock on to abnormalities in cancerous cells rather than using chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

People will be living with cancer in the same way people live with conditions like diabetes today.”

Asthma - PROF RATKO DJUKANOVIC

SINCE Southampton professor Jack Howell discovered the first anti-asthma drug in 1968, the city has established itself at the cutting edge of asthma research.

Southampton scientists – including the internationally renowned Professor Stephen Holgate – were the first to discover that asthma is caused by an inflammation of the airways and to establish its links with the common cold.

Now Southampton is home to the largest asthma research group in the country.

Deep in the city’s £6.5m respiratory research unit – one of only 13 in the UK – scientists are busy developing and testing asthma and emphysema drugs.

The centre – headed by Southampton University’s Professor Ratko Djukanovic – was responsible for identifying an “asthma gene” in 2002 and for manufacturing an important protein – lacking in asthma sufferers – which prevents common viruses becoming more serious.

Southampton respiratory scientists have also shed light on how bacteria becomes resistant to antibiotics.

Now experts are hoping to turn their attentions to the origins of asthma in babies and children so that, in the future, it may be possible to give preventative medicine to mothers during pregnancy.

As a centre of excellence, Southampton frequently attracts large grants and looks sets to receive £23m from the EU.

“At the root of it all are the wonderful patient volunteers,”

said Professor Djukanovic, who is looking for more asthma and emphysema patients to donate tissue for clinical trials. “We use patient cells and a small sample of the airways to mimic, in a test tube, what happens in an individual. That way we can test the drugs safely in the laboratory without effecting the patient.”

■ If you would like to help in forthcoming clinical trials in Southampton, call 023 8079 4343.

CARDIAC PROF MARK HANSON

SUPERTHE Wessex Cardiac Centre at Southampton General Hospital is one of the largest and most successful in the UK, treating patients from the south of England including Devon and Cornwall and the Channel Islands.

Every year, it helps more than 20,000 heart patients and is internationally renowned for its work with children and young people.

The city also makes a valuable contribution to cardiovascular research, with a team of dedicated Southampton University scientists headed up by the British Heart Foundation’s professor Mark Hanson.

These experts pioneered the idea that a mother’s diet and other lifestyle factors can have an important effect on her baby’s risk of heart disease.

“One of our major initiatives is to establish the early life factors which lead to risk in later life,” explained Professor Hanson. “We’re trying to find early markers of risk in children and babies and then devise ways of intervening to lower that risk.

“At the moment we look at birth weight but we know this is crude. We’re trying to devise more subtle markers, like taking a blood sample, perhaps from the umbilical cord.”

“In the future we won’t be considering heart disease as something you develop later in life,” said Professor Hanson “Instead we will be looking at early markers of the disease from birth and customising our lives early on to prevent it.”

In the short term, Professor Hanson and his team are hoping to encourage youngsters to think about their heart health with a £500,000 ‘LifeLab’ scheme, inviting all Year 10 pupils into the city’s cardiovascular laboratories for a day. If they can secure funding, Professor Hanson hopes the scheme will be up and running within a year.

“Here at Southampton we recognise that heart disease is a problem – it affects 40 per cent of the population – and we’re passionate about doing something about it.”