SYMPOSIUM Translational Cancer Research

Veranstaltung ausschließlich für Fachpublikum

Dear Colleagues,

It is our great pleasure to announce the Symposium – Tranlational Cancer Research. 
    
All are most warmly invited to attend. Do not miss this unique opportunity to meet the speakers in person during the get-together. Please register for the symposium and the get-together: DKTK-Berlin(at)charite.de
Please feel free to circulate this email among colleagues who might be interested. Certification by Ärztekammer Berlin is applied for.
 
We look very much forward to welcoming you to the Symposium.
 
Kind regards,

Angelika Eggert           Ulrich Keilholz

Angelika Eggert                                                                       
Director Medical Department of Pediatrics, Division of Oncology and Hematology CVK,                        
DKTK spokesperson       

Ulrich Keilholz
Acting Director of the Charité Comprehensive Cancer Center, 
Deputy DKTK spokesperson

Confirmed Speakers:
 
Almut Schulze “Targeting cancer metabolism”
Abstract: Enhanced macromolecule biosynthesis is integral to cell growth and proliferation and altered metabolic activity has emerged as one of the hallmarks of cancer. Metabolic reprogramming also enables cancer cells to survive conditions of limited nutrient and oxygen supply that are characteristic for the tumour microenvironment. The enhanced biosynthetic demand caused by rapid proliferation renders cancer cells highly sensitive to perturbation of the metabolic network and provides the rationale for therapeutic targeting of metabolic process. We have applied metabolic profiling and screening techniques to identify specific metabolic vulnerabilities in cancer cells. These studies have provided insight into the essential role for lipid biosynthesis and anti-oxidant generation for growth and survival of cancer cells. These vulnerabilities are particularly prominent under conditions of nutrient and oxygen depletion. I will present recent insight into the importance of lipid metabolism and related processes for cancer cell growth and survival.
 
Kristian W. Pajtler “Molecular refinement and therapeutic targeting of ependymoma”
Abstract: The genetic drivers of ependymoma (EPN) remain unknown or non-targetable. Through molecular refinement and transcriptional enhancer profiling of intracranial EPN, we aimed at identifying genes on which malignant cells depend. Enhancer regions revealed putative oncogenic transcriptional programs and molecular targets; inhibition of these targets diminished the proliferation of ependymoma cells in vitro and in vivo. Our study provides a framework that may inform precision therapies against EPN.
 
Duncan Odom “Applying comparative functional genomics to understand transcriptional and cancer evolution”
Abstract: Dr Odom will be discussing how his laboratory’s research has explored the mechanisms underlying the rapid evolutionary plasticity of transcriptional regulatory networks during mammalian evolution. He will also be briefly describing recent research directions, including (1) application of new single-cell technologies to establish how stochasticity influences phenotypes during ageing and evolution, and (2) a systems-biology approach to elucidate how rapid changes in regulatory evolution re-shape the genome’s susceptibility to cancer mutations.

Roland F. Schwarz “Tracing the evolution and function of chromosomal instability across human cancers”
Abstract: Intra-tumour heterogeneity (ITH) has been identified as the major cause for treatment failure in the clinic, yet most cancer sequencing projects have focused on the identification of somatic driver SNVs that are shared between samples and patients. Our group was one of the first to demonstrate that somatic copy-number alterations (SCNAs) rather than single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) affect resistance development and patient outcome in high-grade serous ovarian cancer (Schwarz, et al., 2015). This was enabled through dedicated machine learning algorithms for the quantification of ITH from SCNA data (Schwarz, et al., 2014). I will report on these efforts, as well as subsequent developments that confirmed SCNAs as the major driving force behind genome evolution in non-small cell lung cancer (Jamal-Hanjani, et al., 2017; Abbosh, et al., 2017). I will demonstrate how allele-specific SCNA profiling of multiple tumour regions can detect convergent evolution in clinical samples with direct effects on patient survival and will show how these findings extend to a pan-cancer setting. Lastly, I will report on o recent efforts tracking the functional implications of both SCNA and SNV heterogeneity on the cancer transcriptome through whole-genome and RNA-sequencing of 1200 clinical samples in the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project (Calabrese, et al., 2017).

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