Purdue and IU team to beat cancer

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - IU-Health Arnett announced a partnership with Purdue researchers to try to beat cancer.

The "Cancer Care Engineering" project will look to find similarities between cancers with the ultimate goal being to cure cancer.

Although the data will take several years to gather and analyze, the researchers are hopeful this new type of research will provide some helpful answers.

"We're looking at several different classes of substances, and then trying to integrate that data, in order to find these molecular signatures of cancer," Purdue Vice President of Research Marietta Harrison said.

The project will specifically study colon cancer, which is one of the most common cancers in the United States.

"Colon cancer is challenging," Director of Cancer Services and Research at IU-Health Arnett Dr. Wael Harb said.

"It's the third cancer in this country as far as incidents and mortality. Because it's the third cancer, it's not been well-studied as far as looking at these types of markers."

Most of the funding for the research is coming from the United States Defense Department.