Grant: Team Grant: Bringing Biology to Cancer Prevention - General Pool

EXPOSE-CRC comprises a team of public health scientists, molecular biologists, clinician scientists and patient partners working together to understand and study modifiable factors for colorectal cancer. To do so, we will tackle two main challenges: 1) understanding and mapping the impact of individual versus combinations of exposures that lead to colorectal cancer, and 2) linking these risk factors and early biologic events in colorectal cancer initiation. We propose 3 main aims: 1. Identify individual and combinations of modifiable factors that predict colorectal cancer risk. We will predict colorectal cancer diagnoses from data on nutrition, lifestyle behaviours and environmental exposures, available in the Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow's Health study. 2. Measure the early biological changes that occur with exposure to individual and combinations of modifiable factors in an experimental system. We will establish human 3D tissue structures, called "organoids" from biopsies obtained from patients undergoing a screening colonoscopy. These organoids will be exposed to established and newly discovered risk factors (Aim 1) to measure many sets of early biological cancerous changes occurring at the molecular level. 3. Evaluate the relationship between individual and combinations of modifiable factors, biomarkers, and colorectal polyp diagnosis. We will obtain tissue samples and collect information via questionnaire from a large group of patients undergoing a screening colonoscopy. We will examine the influence of individual and combinations of risk factors (from Aim 1) on a set of biomarkers (from Aim 2) in tissue samples and examine whether they predict cancerous polyps. Our aims combine the strengths of population health and molecular biology research, transcending our current research paradigm where these fields work distinctly. Our findings will inform and prioritize future public health prevention efforts to reduce colorectal cancer burden.