Project description
How ageing impacts the circadian biology of cancer
Age is a leading risk factor for cancer. The decline of circadian rhythms with ageing may alter cancer biology and treatment responses. Important questions include whether ageing changes the impact of circadian disruption on tumours and how established tumour rhythms are affected by host ageing. The ERC-funded CircTu-Age project will combine advanced models of ageing and cancer with targeted disruptions of circadian rhythms. It will explore how ageing impacts the circadian biology of cancer and uncover the link between circadian rhythm decay (an emerging hallmark of ageing) and cancer, a prevalent age-related disease. The findings could help identify interventions to reduce cancer risk later in life and advance the field of cancer chronotherapy.
Objective
Age is cancer's primary risk factor and a significant determinant of how the resulting disease presents and
progresses. Yet the specific contribution of ageing’s diverse hallmarks to this phenomenon is poorly defined.
Circadian rhythms are a conserved adaptation that enables organisms to anticipate daily environmental
cycles and thus mitigate their harmful effects on the body. However, in recent years, a decay of homeostatic
cellular, tissue and systemic circadian rhythms has emerged as a hallmark of mammalian ageing.
Concurrently, in the context of cancer, circadian inputs from the host are known to drive daily rhythms in
tumour microenvironment composition, metastasis seeding and treatment response, whilst disruption of
physiological circadian rhythms is itself an established tumour promoter. When considered together, this
raises the intriguing possibility that ageing of the circadian system may reshape cancer circadian biology in a
manner pertinent to its prevention or treatment.
In particular, three key questions emerge: 1) Does ageing of the body and its circadian rhythm system change
the tumourigenic potency of circadian rhythm disruption? 2) Are the circadian rhythms of an established
tumour altered by ageing of the host and its circadian system? 3) If cancer circadian biology is rewired by
ageing, can we identify where this change originates from?
In CircTu-Age, we will combine cutting-edge models of ageing and cancer with targeted circadian rhythm
disruption and circadian-omics to define how ageing impinges upon the circadian biology of cancer. This
timely project will reveal the as-yet-uncharacterised interaction between an emerging hallmark of ageing,
circadian rhythm decay, and the most common of age-related diseases, cancer. The knowledge generated by
CircTu-Age will provide a roadmap for identifying interventions that diminish cancer risk later in life, and
contribute to refining and expanding the burgeoning field of cancer chronotherapy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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08028 Barcelona
Spain
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