Three innovative ways to advance cancer research
On Sunday 19 April 2015, at the ERC workshop Funding Opportunities in Europe for Creative Minds From Anywhere in the World taking place at the AACR, three of them will be sharing their experience with ERC funding. Discover their research projects, three different approaches that can make the difference in cancer research, three new ways to advance the scientific knowledge on cancer origin and development.
From the onset, the role of adult stem cells
Cancer develops from a single cell. It is the transformation of this normal cell into a cancerous one that causes the formation of a tumour and its progression. For the vast majority of cancers, the cell at the origin remained unknown but researchers believed adult stem cells could be involved in this process. These cells act as a repair and replacement system for our cells following, for instance, an injury. For this purpose, they can self-renew for long periods of time. This ability provides an opportunity for transformed cells to multiply and accumulate, leading to cancer formation.
With his CANCERSTEM project, Dr Blanpain aimed at defining the role of adult stem cells in the initiation of skin cancers, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, and how they contribute to the growth of tumours. Using mouse models, his team could identify that the first cancerous cells can arise from different stem cells of our epidermis. The researchers also explored the importance of cancer stem cells during the different stages of tumour progression and for the first time, they could show of the existence of cancer stem cells within their natural environment. This finding is key, since the latter have been described as feeding tumour growth. They could be resistant to treatment and therefore be responsible for tumour relapse after therapy.
Dr Blanpain’s findings on the cell origin of cancer and its progression with cancer stem cells could point at new targets for anti-cancer therapies.
Researcher: Cédric Blanpain
Host Institution: Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Belgium
ERC Project: Towards a better understanding of the origin of the tumour: Stem cells in epithelial cancer initiation and growth (CANCERSTEM)
ERC Call: Starting grant 2007
ERC Funding: € 1.6 million for five years
© Courtesy C. Blanpain
A new target for anti-cancer treatment
With her ERC project, Dr Soucek aims to test and validate a new potential target for anti-tumour therapies and develop a drug that could potentially be used against most human cancers. She focuses on a protein called Myc, which plays an important regulatory role in our cells. When deregulated, however, the protein causes uncontrolled proliferation of cells, leading to cancer.
Targeting Myc in cancer therapy has been largely ignored until recently because of the predicted devastating side effects that a drug could have on surrounding healthy tissues and the difficulty in designing small molecule inhibitors. However, Dr Soucek believes her team can design a drug based on peptide molecules derived from Myc that would be able to inhibit deregulated Myc proteins without any detrimental consequences in normal tissues. Preliminary studies in mice have shown the benefits of her approach, which demonstrated a dramatic therapeutic impact with relatively mild and reversible side effects. She aims at identifying peptides that can enter the cell and block the action of Myc, and which could be administered safely as a drug. She will test the most promising ones for their ability to inhibit lung cancer in mouse models.
If successful, this high-risk/high-gain project will provide alternative therapeutic treatments for cancer with limited side effects.
Researcher: Laura Soucek
Host Institution: Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), Spain
ERC Project: Pushing Myc inhibition towards the clinic (MYCINHIBINCLINIC)
ERC Call: Consolidator grant 2013
ERC Funding: €1.7 million for five years
Understanding drug resistance in breast cancer
Why does the same treatment bring relief to some patients and work less well for others? Therapies targeting estrogen receptors in cells are routinely used ‘first line’ for breast cancer but patients’ responses to the treatment vary greatly, and cancer resistance to these drugs is acknowledged as a significant problem.
Dr Jason Caroll looks at how these estrogen receptors function: how they participate in gene transcription in healthy cells and how this can contribute to breast cancer progression. During the course of his project, he was able to delineate their role and their molecular ‘partners’ in the process that drives the development of breast cancer. In particular, Dr Caroll’s research has revealed mechanisms involved in drug resistance. With his team, he could identify a protein called ‘FoxA1’ with a critical impact on the function of estrogen receptors during resistance to drug treatment.
The finding makes FoxA1 a potential target for anti-cancer drugs, and this option is currently explored further. The researcher hopes this could constitute an opportunity to treat breast cancer patients resistant to currently available drugs, and possibly to relieve patients with prostate cancer as well.
Researcher: Jason Carroll
Host Institution: University of Cambridge, UK
ERC Project: Chromatin Mediators of Estrogen Receptor Biology (ER_Partners)
ERC Call: Starting grant 2009
ERC Funding: €1.5 million for five years
Discover more stories in the ERC cancer research brochure
