What issue does this study address, and how could the results help patients?
Mucinous cancers release large amounts of mucus. Patients with this cancer type have much worse survival outcomes than other bowel cancer patients.
The research team will study how mucus provides an important part of the environment that mucinous bowel and appendix cancers grow in. Mucus is made up of proteins with attached sugars and they will discover which ones support growth of cancer cells.
Understanding how the chemicals in mucus support tumour growth is key to developing new treatments.
The research team
This study is led by Dr Patrick Caswell at the University of Manchester.