Summary

The evolution of cancer goes along with somatic alterations in the genome, epigenome, and transcriptome. The aims of the research group are to identify such alterations, to characterize their roles in tumor progression and therapy resistance, and to translate them into clinical practice.
We apply genome and transcriptome sequencing as well as other molecular biological screening technologies to identify molecular changes associated with cancer progression and therapy resistance. Our research projects focus on the analysis of the effects of miRNA and lncRNA deregulation in prostate, lung, and kidney cancer. We measure the effects of overexpression or silencing of candidate RNAs on transcriptomes and proteomes in cell lines and mouse models. We determine the activation of signal transduction pathways using proteomics technology. In close collaborations with clinical partners, we integrate these high throughput data with patient-derived data in order to achieve an improved understanding of tumor progression and potentially targetable molecular processes.
The huge molecular heterogeneity of tumor tissues is a challenge for therapy decision in individual patients. Therefore, we also use genomics and proteomics technologies to characterize this heterogeneity and to determine the molecular evolution of cancers in space and time. We quantify cancer specific mutations in blood plasma (liquid biopsy) to monitor tumor load, to detect cancer earlier, and to unravel mechanisms of therapy resistance in tumor subclones.