Queen’s University Belfast is teaming up with business to find new ways to treat cancer

Queen’s University Belfast and health sciences company Almac Discovery are working together to develop new drugs to treat cancer in two projects worth £13 million.

The first project will conduct a clinical trial involving 60 ovarian cancer patients, aimed at testing the effectiveness of a drug created as part of an earlier collaboration between the two organisations.

Scientists from Almac Discovery and the Centre for Cancer Research & Cell Biology at Queen’s will also come together to translate research discoveries in the laboratories into treatments for patients. This discovery team will work to identify new therapeutic targets within aggressive tumours and then develop new drugs that selectively target them.

The partnership will also develop new ways of selecting those patients who will be more likely to respond to these new anti-cancer drugs, and to create the technologies needed to deliver the drugs directly to the tumour site in the patient.

Both projects are supported by funding from the Higher Education Innovation Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.

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