What is this project about?
This project is about learning how prostate cancer starts and changes over time in Black men.
Although these men live in different places, they share similar ancestry.
This helps us understand how genes and lifestyle both play a role.
Our goal is to better understand why some men are more likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer.
of African-Caribbean background
at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust
with University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica
What will we do?
Patient
Men with prostate cancer
Sample
Small sample from surgery
Whole Genome Sequencing
We read all the DNA letters
Computer Analysis
We look for patterns and changes
Understand Cancer Evolution
We see how the cancer has grown over time
How does Whole Genome Sequencing work?
- DNA is like a recipe book for your body.
- WGS lets us read the whole book from start to finish.
- It helps us find changes that may lead to cancer.
You can also think of it like music.
- When all the notes are in the right place, the song sounds right.
- If some notes change or go off-beat, the tune can sound different.
- WGS lets us listen to the full song from start to finish.
This helps us see:
What changes have happened
When they happened
How the cancer has grown over time
What are we trying to find?
Cancer does not grow the same way in everyone.
You can think of it like different routes on a journey — some are fast, some are slow, some take unexpected turns.
We call these different paths evotypes — short for evolutionary types.
We want to find out:
- Which evolutionary routes are more common in Black men
- Whether these routes are the same in the UK and Jamaica
This research will help us:
Understand why prostate cancer can be more serious in Black men
Find better ways to spot it earlier
Improve treatment so it works better for each person
Make research more fair by including Black communities
Better knowledge today. Better outcomes tomorrow.