Übersicht

Our research group focuses on the study of clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC). We study the entire process of tumour formation, beginning with the molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie the breakdown of normal epithelial proliferative homeostasis, the evolution of tumour cells and parallel evolution of the tumour microenvironment, as well as the process of metastasis. Our major experimental approach is to generate accurate autochthonous mouse tumour models using conventional mouse genetics (Höfflin et al. Nature Communications, 2020; Harlander et al. Nature Medicine 2017; Gonçalves et al Nature Communications 2017, Schönenberger et al. Cancer Research 2016, Guinot et al. Journal of Pathology, 2016, Lehmann et al. JASN, 2015), as well as novel genetic systems that we have developed (Albers et al. JCI, 2015, Brandt et al. Oncotarget 2018, Catalano et al. Cancers 2021). We apply advanced analyses such as RNA sequencing, single cell RNA sequencing, exome sequencing, genome-wide epigenetic analyses, metabolomics, in vivo imaging tools and multi-parametric fluorescence microscopy to our tumour models to gain a broad understanding of disease processes. From the therapeutic perspective, we conduct pre-clinical studies to attempt to uncover specific vulnerabilities of cancer cells that are dictated by their underlying mutational genotype and their microenvironment. Our research in the context of the DKTK aims to develop new personalised therapies that target altered DNA damage signalling and repair networks in ccRCC.