OVERCOMING RESISTANCE OF HUMAN MELANOMA TO CHEMOTHERAPY

Funding Activity

Website
http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/351114

Funding Status
Closed

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Funded Activity Summary

Melanoma is the third most common cancer in women and men respectively. In NSW alone approximately 400 die each year from the disease. The main treatment of melanoma is surgical removal of the primary tumor on the skin but once the disease spreads beyond the skin to other organs there is no curative treatment. This study will identify whether resistance of melanoma to chemotherapy is due to failure to induce sufficient levles of pro-apoptotic BH3 only proteins and-or activation of apoptosis resistance pathways. The results will be directly relevant to subsequent clinical trials in melanoma paients. Apoptosis may be triggered by chemotherapeutic agents but human melanoma shows wide variability in apoptotic responses to chemotherapy. Recent studies have shown that the Bcl-2 family of pro- and anti-apoptotic proteins and inhibitor of apoptosis proteins appear to be key regulators of the (mitochondrial) apoptosis pathway induced by chemotherapy. The activity of the proteins appear to be regulated by several signal pathways in the cell which may be activated by signals external or intrinsic to the cell. We wish to characterize the proteins involved in chemotherapy induced apoptosis, assess their variability between melanoma cells that are sensitive or resistant to apoptosis and characterize the signal pathways involved in regulating the proteins in human melanoma.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2005

End Date: 01-01-2007

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $499,500.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Oncology and Carcinogenesis

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Apoptosis induced by chemotherapy | Cell death/Apoptosis | Chemotherapy | Experimental Oncology | Melanoma | Melanoma resistance to cell death | Metastatic disease | Resistance to chemotherapy | Treatment of cancer

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