Colorectal cancer is the second highest cause of death from cancer in Canada. In 2012, an estimated 23,300 Canadians were diagnosed with colorectal cancer and 9,200 died of it. Most deaths from this disease are caused by resistance to treatment and/or the spread of the original disease to other parts of the body, a process called metastasis. Understanding how colorectal cancer cells resist chemotherapy and spread is therefore vital to improving treatments and survival rates for this disease. Our team has already identified several proteins that are more abundant in colorectal tumours than in normal tissue. Among them is a protein called CDK10, which is responsible for participating in cell division, and has not yet been reported as being involved in colorectal cancer. I propose to undertake a detailed study of how this protein is involved in colorectal cancer. My results could help physicians identify the colorectal tumours that are most likely to not respond to treatment and to spread to other parts of the body, leading to new therapeutic strategies.