ATHLETICS. This weekend four research colleagues from the Institute of Biomedicine ran the Fight Cancer and Run race in Gothenburg, the proceeds from which go to the Jubilee Clinic Cancer Fund. They ran the race to support cancer research and to highlight how glycobiology offers new ways to attack stomach cancers.
The four included mix of seasoned and less experienced runners. Niclas Karlsson, associate professor of medical and physiological chemistry, had the most running experience, including having participated in several GöteborgsVarvet races. Yolanda Mthembu had hardly ever run before. Neither Jessica Örnros nor Barbara Adamczyk count themselves as seasoned runners.
“Those of us with less experience planned to only run 5 kilometers, but when we saw the 6 km sign (Jessica, Barbara and Yolanda), we realized that we had missed the turn off from the main route. So we all ended up running the 10 kilometer race,” says Jessica Örnros, who is a post-doctoral researcher and is science communicator for the research team.
She notes that, after the race, everyone was very happy with their performance: “Yolanda, whose longest run prior to this had been three kilometers, completed the race in 1 hour and 12 minutes; Barbara and I reached the finish line in just under an hour!”
The research team is coordinating the GastricGlycoExplorer network, which is funded by the EU Seventh Framework Programme andbrings together scientists from 15 institutes in Europe. Glycobiology offers a new approach to treating stomach cancer.
“Within the GGE project we identify carbohydrate structures in patient samples and look for changes linked to stomach cancer. Stomach cancer is currently one of the deadliest cancers. In the future, we hope that our research and that of others in glycobiology can be used both for earlier diagnosis and also more effective treatment of stomach cancer patients,” says Niclas Karlsson.
What are the major challenges that glycobiologists like yourself are currently working on to fight stomach cancer?
“By studying stomach cancer from a glycobiologistic perspective, the GGE project is trying to find clues to questions like: who will develop stomach cancer?, what can new cancer therapies treat? and why will the new treatment strategies work better than the old ones?.”
Since glycobiology is a relatively new area of research that is rising quickly, the training of the next generation of researchers is important. Within the GastricGlycoExplorer network, 15 individuals are being trained and offered the opportunity to establish contacts with both experienced glycobiologists and each other for future research collaborations. The first dissertations by the first crop of young GGE-trained researchers are expected to be defended during 2016.
