Cell Signaling in Tumor Development and Metastasis
Cancer can be considered as a genetic disease. Mutations, that means errors, in key genes controlling growth of body cells are usually the underlying causes for the development of a tumor. Such key genes are signaling to the cell when it is supposed to divide itself and grow. In a cancer cell this signaling is aberrant and happens constantly, with the effect that cancer cells keep on dividing. This leads to a cell lump, the tumor.
When cells of the primary tumor begin to migrate away from the initial tumor site into surrounding tissues and into blood vessels, they can be carried through the blood stream into other organs and can there form secondary tumors. The process is called metastasizing, a secondary tumor is called a metastasis. Today more than 90 % of cancer deaths are due to the metastases, rather than the primary tumor.
The research projects of this module are investigating the contribution from different signaling genes to tumor development and the formation of metastases. The scientists analyze the signaling in different tumor types. One project specifically focuses on signaling errors leading to breast cancer, a second project concentrates on skin and colon cancers. In this project the scientists investigate for example the mechanisms by which a colon tumor leads to metastases in the liver. A third project is looking into genetic signals in soft tissue tumors, so-called sarcomas, and especially into the molecular mechanisms of metastasis. Scientists in project 4 are developing a novel anti-cancer drug by using a protein that blocks an aberrant signaling process. Finally, in project no. 5 our researchers use bioinformatics to simulate the complex signaling processes that lead to the malignant growth of cancer cells.