Metoxia

A European Collaborative Project within Health Research, funded with the support of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and coordinated by the Department of Physics, University of Oslo, Norway

Solid cancers generally contain areas with abnormally low levels of oxygen. Such areas are denoted hypoxic.

It has long been known that cancer cells in such hypoxic micro-environments are resistant to treatment.

Recent research has  shown that hypoxia in tumours is one of the major drivers of metastatic spread of cancer, the major cause of death by the disease.

Thus, hypoxia is responsible for a double effect of reducing the potential of a successful treatment of the cancer patient: Resistance to treatment and ability to spread. At the same time the very low level of oxygen found in solid tumours are specific to cancer.

Therefore, if one could develop methods that specifically located and inactivated cells in hypoxic areas one might obtain a cancer-specific effect, selective for the most harmful of the cancer cells.

This development is the core task of the METOXIA project.

 

News

  • METOXIA – Recognition Oct. 9, 2019 1:05 PM

    EU-funded scientist among Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine

    The European Commission announces the following news on 7 October 2019:

    The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2019 has been awarded jointly to William G. Kaelin Jr, Sir Peter J. Ratcliffe and Gregg L. Semenza for their discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability.

  • METOXIA – et Kinderegg for kreftbehandling Jan. 15, 2016 3:06 PM

    Ny kunnskap om kreftceller i oksygenfattig miljø, ny metode som hindrer spredning av kreft samt innovasjon. Det gigantiske UiO-styrte EU-prosjektet METOXIA er et som et Kinderegg; flere godbiter i ett.

  • Forging new paths in pursuit of more targeted cancer treatments June 22, 2015 1:20 PM

    EU-funded researchers have developed an innovative new cancer treatment. Interest from the pharmaceutical industry has been so great that the research team has set up a company dedicated to bringing their innovations to market.

  • Publications Oct. 23, 2014 10:59 AM

    A total of 448 publications with acknowledgement to the METOXIA project, by project partners, have been listed in the EUs Participant Portal for the period 2009 - 2014. A list of the publications is now available on the website under About METOXIA-Publications.