Forscherdatenbank
Dr. Barbara Grüner
Department of Medical Oncology University Hospital Essen
Hufelandstr. 55
45147 Essen
Programm
Molecularly Targeted Therapy (MTT)
Übersicht
Molecular Mechanisms of Metastasis and Therapeutic Intervention
Several factors contribute to the poor outcome of cancer patients, but the ability of cancer cells to leave the primary tumor and establish inoperable metastases is a major impediment to successful therapy. Although most cancer patients die of complications resulting from the effects of metastases, the basic molecular and cellular mechanisms that endow a tumor cell with the ability to leave the primary tumor, survive during transit through the blood, and establish and maintain a new tumor in a secondary organ remain incompletely understood.
Using advanced patient-derived murine tumor models of Pancreatic Cancer that closely resemble the human disease and combining those with powerful quantitative genetic tools we are scrutinizing the molecular mechanisms that allow cancer cells to metastasize and how this process can be inhibited. Given the cancer’s high intrinsic resistance to established and newly developed targeted therapies we furthermore use these models to study the underlying mechanisms of resistance and how they can be overcome, getting one step closer to efficient cancer therapy.
DKTK Junior Group Leader for Cancer Systems Biology
Single-cell approaches have not only revealed a wide variety of cell states, characterized by cells exhibiting striking differences in their transcriptional profile, but have also illuminated the mechanisms underlying state transitions in health and disease. Cellular plasticity and adaptive state changes have recently emerged as a basis for therapeutic resistance in cancer, and a better understanding of how cell state transitions are regulated is critical to develop therapeutic approaches that can overcome therapy resistance.
Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms driving non-genetic cellular heterogeneity and therapy resistance in malignancy. Using novel single-cell sequencing approaches, we seek to develop new experimental and computational strategies to define altered cell states in both, cancer and immune cells. Our aim is to leverage a data driven strategy combined with single cell genomics and systems biology to address the challenges posed by heterogeneity in cancer, and to develop new strategies to overcome it, with the aim of translating laboratory-based findings into the clinic.