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Approved research

Quantifying the genetic contributions to cancer and cancer risk factors

Principal Investigator: Professor Stuart MacGregor
Approved Research ID: 19444
Approval date: October 3rd 2016 | Completion date: May 2nd 2018

Lay summary

Previously we showed that inherited factors underlie cancer risk and can link cancers to cancer risk factors. Here we wish to expand our work on these topics using the UK Biobank data. We will extract information on diagnosis of esophageal cancer and other common cancers and use the data to determine to what extent genes underlie risk. We will test if there is a significant genetic overlap between esophageal cancer and other cancers, as well as testing pairwise between cancers. Finally we will conduct analysis attempting to identify the specific genes underpinning cancer risk for esophageal and other common cancers. Our work will provide insights into the relationship between cancer and cancer risk factors. In the future this may help with cancer control and with improving our understanding of the molecular aetiology of cancer risk. We will extract information on diagnosis of esophageal adenocarcinoma and other common cancers and use UK Biobank array data to estimate the genetic component underlying cancer risk. We will test if there is a significant genetic overlap between esophageal adenocarcinoma and other cancers, as well as testing pairwise between cancers. We will conduct analysis attempting to identify the specific loci underpinning the polygenic contribution to cancer risk for esophageal adenocarcinoma and other common cancers. Full cohort