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Manjili, who is a member of the Cancer Cell Signaling research program at VCU Massey Cancer Center and associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the VCU School of Medicine, serves on the “Getting To Know Cancer” advisory board and is a member of the organization’s Halifax Project task force. He participated in conceiving the study and writing the research manuscript, particularly in relation to tumor-promoting inflammation and immune evasion. “This is a game-changing project proposing that cumulative effects of individual non-carcinogenic chemicals could produce carcinogenic synergies,” he said. “This new understanding of carcinogenesis could lead to restructuring the World Health Organization International Programme on Chemical Safety.”

This project represents the first time that this large-scale problem has ever been considered by interdisciplinary teams that could fully interpret the full spectrum of cancer biology and incorporate what is now known about low-dose chemical effects. In light of this evidence, the task force is calling for an increased emphasis and support for research on low-dose exposures to mixtures of chemicals that are unavoidable in the environment.

Current estimates suggest that as many as one in five cancers may be due to chemical exposures in the environment that are not related to personal lifestyle choices, so the effects of exposures to mixtures of commonly encountered chemicals needs to be better understood in order to reduce the incidence of cancer.   

The full manuscript of this study is available here.

Written by: Jenny Owen