NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The non-profit No Stomach for Cancer said today it has awarded $100,000 to fund two research projects that will investigate the genetic basis of gastric cancer.
One of the $50,000 grants will support a project by University of British Columbia Professor David Huntsman and researcher Carla Oliveira, of the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology at the University of Porto, Portugal. Huntsman and Oliveira will team to study the how the CDH1 gene functions in relation to the development of hereditary diffuse gastric cancer. They plan to identify more variants of CDH1 and pinpoint other genes that may be involved in development of HDGC and other types of gastric cancer.
Another $50,000 NSFC grant will fund a study by University of California, Davis Assistant Professor Luis Carvajal-Carmona, at the UC Davis Genome Center, to improve genetic testing options for familial stomach cancer. Current testing for familial stomach cancer is only useful for less than half of families and the genetic causes of the remaining cases are not known, NSFC said. Carvajal-Carmona plans to use DNA sequencing to study families from around the world for whom the cause of their cancer aggregation is not known.
Globally, gastric cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer, and is the second leading cause of cancer deaths, NSFC said.