Guest lectures by Rajan Gogna and Esha Madan
Cell fitnes in tumor microenvironment
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Rajan Gogna
University of Copenhagen, Denmark / School of Medicine Human and Molecular Genetics, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
Title: Role of Cell Fitnes and Flower Code in tumor-host interactions.
Abstract: The role of cell competition and fitness fingerprints in regulating the relation between cancer and its microenvironment was recently discovered. Cancer cells can have a positive fate with high growth and metastasis, or they can be stalled based on the fitness of the microenvironment in which they grow. When oncogenic cells appear within an organ or arrive at a new site via metastasis, they establish a pre-cancerous field. The growth of this pre-cancerous lesion depends on the scope of interaction and competition with the normal and stromal cells in the microenvironment. Identification of mechanisms by which cancer cells program the microenvironment, will provide us with a strategic advantage to win a major battle with fighting primary and metastatic cancer growth.
Esha Madan
Champalimaud Centre for the Unknown, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
Title: Molecular Mechanism of the regulation of Flower Exon-3 in Tumor Microenvironment.
Abstract: Tumor microenvironment with high-fitness cells that can compete with cancer cells does not support the growth of the oncogenic clones. For the first time, we aim to investigate whether cancer cells have the ability to program the normal and stromal cells in the microenvironment to reduce their fitness status. Based on preliminary data we aim to identify a unique molecular mechanism via which cancer cells, release long non-coding RNAs via exosomes to regulate the epigenetics and splicing regulation of key cell fitness proteins in the tumour microenvironment. The Discovery of this mechanism will elucidate the evolutionary advantage of cancer cells to grow both as primary tumours and at metastatic sites.
Chairperson: Frits Alan Thorsen (frits.thorsen@uib.no)