Notable Research Achievements
Advancing Personalized Medicine through International Collaboration
THE GLOBAL BRAIN CANCER ALLIANCE (TGBCA): With your support, AFCR continues to help build the Global Brain Cancer Alliance (TGBCA) – a new international collaboration platform that aims to unite global efforts to accelerate brain cancer research. The Alliance is working together to develop more effective, personalized approaches to defeating this deadly disease on a global scale.
THE TISSUE BANK CONSORTIUM IN ASIA (TBCA): Since 2007, AFCR has been supporting The Tissue Bank Consortium in Asia (TBCA) –a highly successful collaboration platform that provides high quality cancer tissues to researchers around the world, with the goal of accelerating biospecimen-based personalized cancer medicine for many different types of cancer.
Key Programs to Combat Leading Cancers in Asia
COLORECTAL CANCER: A novel tumor suppressor gene for colorectal cancer was discovered. This gene may serve as a prognostic indicator to help doctors choose the best treatment approach for their patients. It may also serve as a target for the development of new treatments to stop the spread of colorectal cancer. [Prof. Wei Zhang, MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA]
ESOPHAGEAL CANCER: Encouraging progress has been made towards identifying new biomarkers for esophageal cancer through analysis oftumor tissues collected from Asian patients. This promising work could lead to a simple blood screening test for early detection of esophageal cancer. It may also be used to determine high risk groups for the disease. [Prof. Maria Li Lung, University of Hong Kong]
GASTRIC CANCER: A recently completed project in part sponsored by AFCR – Geographical Mapping of Gastric Cancer Genomics – identified several novel biomarkers for gastric cancer. This project performed “next generation” genomic profiling on a large number of gastric cancer samples provided by TBCA. The findings could profoundly improve treatment and survival for patients with gastric cancer, especially for the Asian population. [AFCR, TBCA, and collaborating cancer research entities in the USA]
OVARIAN CANCER: An important link between ovarian cancer and the loss of a specific molecule in the cells, called miR-506, was established. The research suggests that restoring miR-506 may provide a new and effective way to treat this notorious silent killer of women. [Prof. Wei Zhang, MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA, in collaboration with TBCA and cancer research hospitals in China]
Public Education to Increase Cancer Awareness
AFCR provides a series of free public education materials to strengthen cancer awareness among households in Hong Kong as well as in other parts of Asia. Our most popular publication education materials include: Cancer Awareness Colors, Childhood Cancer Detection Chart, Cancer Prevention Tips, Cancer Detection Guide, Cancer-Fighting Recipes, and the “On Your Health” Series.
