About Us

Discovering the causes of colorectal cancer, reducing its incidence, and improving precision prevention.

Cancer of the colon and rectum or bowel cancer takes the lives of over 5,000 Australians every year. National incidence of colorectal cancer have increased dramatically in young people. It is now the leading cause of cancer related death for 20 - 39 year olds in Australia. The reasons for this increase are unknown.

Led by Associate Professor Daniel Buchanan, the Colorectal Oncogenomics Group’s research aims to identify the causes of colorectal cancer and colonic polyposis, particularly in young adults. They are developing methods to improve the diagnosis of hereditary cancer syndromes.

Their goal is to enable prevention and early detection by identifying people with an increased risk of the disease, to inform primary and secondary prevention strategies.

One of the ways they achieve this is by identifying and investigating relevant subtypes of colorectal cancer through comparison of tumours and pre-malignant lesions known as polyps. The team builds complex cancer and polyp profiles including information on the genomic and methylomic landscape, intratumoural microbiome, immune cell response, histopathological characteristics, clinical data, and environmental and lifestyle factors.