National team will study why more young Australians develop the disease
Bowel Cancer Australia has committed $3 million to establish a five-year research centre focused on why early-onset bowel cancer is rising in younger Australians.
Participating institutions and partners added $2.8 million, taking total funding for the Centre of Research Excellence ARTEMIS to $5.8 million.
Associate Professor Dan Buchanan will lead the 22-member team. It brings together researchers, clinicians and people with lived experience from six universities, four research institutes, and four hospitals and health services.
Over the next five years, the program will investigate the aetiology, risk factors, tumourigenesis, exposures, microbiome and immune susceptibilities linked to early-onset bowel cancer.
Researchers will work across three connected themes. One will examine how the gut microbiome influences disease development. Another will build a molecular atlas from normal bowel tissue to early-onset polyps and then cancer. A third will use functional testing and preclinical models to study causes and pathways.
ARTEMIS will study three cancer pathways
Buchanan said the centre takes its name from Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, to reflect the team’s effort to track down what is driving the rise in the disease among young Australians.
“We are all very committed to working together to identify the causes and mechanisms contributing towards the development and increasing rates of early-onset bowel cancer over the next five years,” Buchanan said.
He said his research treats contemporary early-onset bowel cancer as a new type of disease with multiple causes and risk factors linked to modern day living.
According to Buchanan, different combinations of inherited risk, environmental exposures, microbiome changes, immune susceptibility and tumour biology could raise a young person’s risk and lead to a diagnosis.
He said the team wants to separate these cancers at a molecular level and pinpoint the role of the gut microbiome in cancer development. That evidence could support more targeted risk assessment and help guide personalised prevention, screening and care pathways.
The centre will also train and mentor emerging researchers and clinicians in early-onset bowel cancer during the five-year program.
