Role of brm in skin tumour progression from benign to malignant

Funded Activity Summary

Australia has the highest incidence of skin cancer in the world. Skin cancer is 3 times as common as all other cancers combined and continues to increase in incidence, particularly in the aging population. Skin cancer is caused by exposure to the ultraviolet radiation found in sunlight. Ultraviolet radiation causes the appearance of solar keratosis, or sunspots, benign lesions that are not particularly dangerous to human health. Some of these develop into malignant squamous cell carcinomas that can spread to other tissues and are potentially fatal. Little is known about the biological mechanisms involved in solar keratosis development into squamous cell carcinomas. We have identified the gene brm as being involved in this process. It has not previously been recognised that this gene is important for skin cancer development and therefore our preliminary studies have identified a potential new target. We will study the role of this gene in ultraviolet radiation induced skin carcinogenesis, determine whether it is mutated by ultraviolet radiation in human skin cancer, and what role in plays in some key biological processes in skin cancer development. This study will expand our understanding of malignant conversion during human skin carcinogenesis, the most prevalent human cancer in Australia.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2006

End Date: 01-01-2008

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $457,267.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Dermatology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

Malignancy | Skin Cancer | Solar Keratosis | Squamous cell carcinoma | Tumour progression | mutation detection | skin cancer | squamous cell carcinoma | tumour suppressor gene | ultraviolet radiation

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