COGS

Prof. Per Hall

Scientific Coordinator of COGS, based at the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

Research field

Cancer, Genetics, Epidemiology

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Who?

"I was treating breast cancer patients and I asked myself: why do some women get this disease while others do not? If we knew that, we could prevent the disease. The COGS project will help to answer my question", says Per Hall, Professor of Radiation Epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

Why?

Every year, 440,000 Europeans are diagnosed with breast, ovary, or prostate cancer and 190,000 die from one of these cancers. Several risk factors are known, but it is not possible to accurately determine a person’s cancer risk. Risk prediction can save lives because it will enable us to intervene before the disease develops.

What?

We want to find genetic & lifestyle risk factors for breast, ovary, and prostate cancer. This can help us to calculate a person's risk for these cancers. We may be able to develop preventive medication to protect people at high cancer risk. Or we can advise them to alter their lifestyle and to have regular medical examinations.

How?

Cancer is caused by a complex combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. Each factor forms a small part of a person’s cancer risk. Combining the data from many patients is needed to identify small risk factors. International collaboration is thus essential. We use data of over 200,000 patients from all over the world.

Predicting one’s risk of breast, ovary or prostate cancer

Preventive medicine: in the future, we might be able to prevent people at high risk of cancer from developing the disease

COGS project website Per Hall's Professor presentation World Health Organization Learn about prostate cancer (American cancer society) Learn about breast cancer (American cancer society) In Focus article 'Genetic spelling mistakes revealed' In Focus article 'Personalised cancer care'

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Background image: COGS

Portrait of the project coordinator: COGS

Timeline (in chronological order): COGS