We are proud to announce that prof Ken Maes and his team has been awarded a research grant from the "Wetenschappelijk Fonds Willy Gepts".
In the project entitled "Unravelling DNA variants of unknown significance: towards further diagnosis, prognosis, and targeted therapies in cancer patients", the team will conduct further research into genetic variants lacking clarity on their potential role in cancer development and treatment. This project falls within the scope of an overarching research project entitled “CLARITY”, initiated at our department in 2022.
🔬 Why this matters:
Genetic testing for cancer patients has become a standard-of-care. The identified genetic variants can subsequently be categorized as pathogenic (disease causing) or benign (non-disease causing). However, some variants are only recently being detected or are very rare, leaving the physicians wondering if these variants cause disease or not. Moreover, the biological effect and possible treatment options for patients with such variants remains unknown.
Therefore, this project aims to determine the role of these so called “variants of unknown significance” (hashtag#VUS) in a cohort of over 5000 cancer patients to see which VUS are important. This project helps us better understand cancer and to better translate our knowledge into hashtag#personalizedmedicine.
Prof Dr. Ken Maes, Prof. Dr. Philippe Giron, Prof. Dr. Frederik Hes , Dr. Jelle Vlaeminck, Dr. Christine Helsen, MSc. Dries Vanisterbecq, MSc. Freya Vaeyens, Centrum voor Medische Genetica - UZ Brussel