Li Li, MD, PhD
Researchers at the University of Virginia are hard at work trying to understand one of the most pervasive forms of cancer: colorectal.
While the overall rate of colon or rectal cancers diagnoses have dropped in the past few decades, the American Cancer Society says more young people are being diagnosed. African Americans continue to face higher diagnosis rates and lower survival rates.
These are all key issues those working in the lab of Li Li, MD, PhD, UVA’s Walter M. Seward Professor and chair of Family Medicine, director of population health, and co-director of the Cancer Prevention and Population Health program, are working to understand.
In 2021, Li was part of a group of UVA Health scientists who discovered that, in African Americans, the right side of the colon ages faster, while the left side ages faster in people of European descent, and that both populations were more likely to develop lesions on the half that aged more quickly. Researchers say this finding may begin to explain the racial disparities in colorectal cancer prevalence.
Currently, the lab’s research is focused on building a biobank with samples from UVA Health patients to study different aspects of colon cancer – like how colon polyps, small masses of tissue in the colon, form.
“Colon polyps are the first step in developing cancer,” lab specialist Samyukta Venkatesh said. “The aim of colonoscopies are to look for polyps in the colon and rectum.”
Read the full story in UVA Today.
Filed Under: Research