NET Patient Foundation has joined together with Association for Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Disorders, AMEND, to investigate the research that is happening in the UK for NETs.
For the second leg of the research road trip we visited the UCL Cancer Institute.
This project in collaboration with AMEND has 3 main aims:
- Map the current research landscape with regarding to neuroendocrine and endocrine tumours
- Encourage collaborative research
- Direct charitable funds to research projects with real potential and impact
We had a very interesting morning with the research team at UCL, lead by Prof Tim Meyer and Dr Chrissie Thirwell. The team shared with us the work they are doing in NETs, including work on:
- Defining the Immune landscape. It was amazing to hear that to do some genetic profiling on 1 patient costs £500!
- Circulating Cancer Cells. This is a fascinating area that looks at cells in the blood stream that can be both prognostic and predictive. NETs are a problematic group of cancers as they evolve and change.
- Liquid biopsy is another area of study and this looks at the DNA of any circulating cancer cells.
- NET Epigenomics. This is looking at the molecular level of the tumours. Understanding how and why they form in the first place.
There is also other work looking into Lung NETs. Further details of this work can be found on the research section of the website. This work is being supported by a NET Patient Foundation Grant.
At the end of the road trip we will be producing a report and of course we will share this with you, along with our plans to try and raise some significant funds to support research like this. We need to understand these tumours better to be able to treat them in the best way according to the individual patient…. and we need to do more to help!