Biochemical Endocrinology Team

Team Leader: Professor Mitch Dowsett

Location: Royal Marsden, London

Section: Academic Department of Biochemistry

The remit of this team is to apply endocrine analyses firstly to optimise the use of new hormonal agents, either alone or in combination with other agents, for use in breast cancer and secondly to participate in epidemiological studies of breast (and other) cancer risk.

Over the years the team has conducted a very large number of studies in the area of drug development, with particular emphasis on aromatase inhibitors. Data derived by the group have contributed to the licensing of 3 aromatase inhibitors (4-hydroxyandrostenedione, anastrozole, letrozole). Over recent years we have established the use of in vivo whole-body aromatisation studies using dual isotopic analyses as a benchmark for comparison between aromatase inhibitors. Most of these studies have been conducted in collaboration with Professor Lonning (Bergen, Norway).

As the use of hormonal agents extends into the prevention arena the assays have taken on a slightly different application in evaluating the sensitivity of different patients sub-groups to the effect of a given agent, both desirable and undesirable.

A third strand, which in many ways forms a connecting strand between the two above, is in our investigation of large cohorts of plasma samples derived from studies of the epidemiology of breast and other cancers. Much of this work is now in collaboration with the EPIC Study Group in Cambridge.