Mechanisms of Cancer Stem Cell Survival, Metastasis Formation and Immune Evasion in Cancer

Recent research suggests that cancer cells within a tumour represent a highly heterogeneous cell population. In particular many tumours contain small percentage of cells that share several characteristics with stem cells. Stem cells are highly plastic cells able to generate identical copies of themselves, differentiate into specialised cell types and to actively migrate through the human body. The cancer stem cell theory proposed that few cells within a tumour have similar properties and that those cells are primarily responsible for immune system evasion, formation of metastases and relapse of cancer after therapy.
Within this projects modern state-of-the-art techniques will be applied to study molecular pathways allowing cancer stem cells to modulate the immune system, evade cancer therapy, and form metastases. Among others, the project will involve confocal laser scanning microscopy, modern 2D and 3D cell culture techniques along with molecular biology methods such as quantitative real-time PCR and luciferase reporter gene assays.
In summary, students who are interested in this project will have splendid opportunities to learn a broad spectrum of techniques in the fields of cancer biology, cell and molecular biology, biochemistry, pharmacology, structural biology, and immunology. Overall, this project will largely contribute to our understanding of cancer development and progression and could lead to development of new therapeutic approaches.