Nottingham Scientist wins Cancer Research Award

Dr Marios Georgiou, lecturer in cell biology in Nottingham University’s School of Biomedical Sciences, has been awarded a five year Career Establishment Award of £600,000 from Cancer Research UK (CRUK) in support of career development and exciting discoveries that will help win the fight against cancer. The Charity has awarded £12 million to ten exceptional scientists and Dr Georgiou will use the award to identify the genes that are important for a benign tumour to transform into a malignant one. This is crucial to understanding how tumours spread to other parts of the body.

Dr Georgiou said: “I am thrilled and honoured that such a prestigious organisation as CRUK believes my research to be important and relevant. The substantial award will allow me to embark upon an ambitious project to identify genes involved in tumour progression. The five years funding, with generous support for research staff and running costs, is ideal for me as a newly appointed lecturer at The University of Nottingham as it will allow me to establish the laboratory and to focus my research in the hope of producing work of high quality and of high significance to human health.

“Our research uses the fruit fly (a small fly, which you may often find flying above your fruit bowl) to study cancer because it has many advantages over other cancer models. For instance we can carry out complex experiments relatively quickly and cheaply and by using the fly, we avoid using vertebrate animals for this research.”Dr Georgiou and his team have developed a system that combines the powerful genetic tools of the fruit fly with state-of-the-art live cell imaging. Using this system, cancer cells can be followed in unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution as the tumour progresses in the living animal. This will allow them to characterise the precise molecular and cell biological events that lead to the development of a malignant tumour. Dr David Scott, Cancer Research UK’s director of science funding, said: “Having 10 awards available sends out the important message that Cancer Research UK is serious about supporting new scientists at the start of their careers.”