Currently, little is known about how different amounts and types of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species influence the state of tumours and their response to chemotherapy.
Researchers will be looking to develop a novel electroanalytical sensor that can monitor these species over long time frames and provide answers to these questions.
The research is being jointly funded by Cancer Research UK and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and is being led by Dr Bhavik Patel, Reader in Clinical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, and Dr Melanie Flint, Reader in Cancer Biology, both in the university’s School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences.
Dr Patel said: “We are excited by the new funding and, more importantly, by the possibility of developing novel sensor devices that could monitor these species in tumour tissue.”
Dr Flint said: “Discovering how these species affect the efficacy of treatment will provide key insight into optimising new and existing cancer treatments for patients.”
The research project will run until 2019.