Research
Tumor microenvironnement and resistance to treatment : A. Turtoi

Despite ongoing advances in cancer research, surgery remains the only option available to effectively treat localized solid tumors. Metastases represent the leading cause of cancer mortality, and to date, no systemic therapy is capable of preventing their occurrence. The failure of current chemotherapies is essentially due to the ability of tumors to change and resist treatment.  Intratumoral heterogeneity is one of the reasons why cancer cells survive, resist and adapt to their environment. Furthermore, tumors cannot grow, spread or resist to anti-cancer treatments without the support of the tumor microenvironment (TME), a structure made up of fibroblasts, endothelial cells, neurons and immune cells. Among these different cell types, fibroblasts, particularly those associated with cancer (CAF, cancer associated fibroblasts), represent a major source of growth factors, extracellular matrix proteins, immune molecules and energy substrates.

Our laboratory focuses on primary (hepatocellular) and secondary liver cancers (metastases from pancreas and colon cancer) and we are interested in deciphering the dialogue between cancer cells and the stromal cells. We study the molecular mechanisms in the TME that support tumor growth, and how different CAF populations participate in this process. Along this path, we discover new cancer biomarkers that can serve for either cancer diagnosis or therapy. To this end, our lab develops novel antibody-based therapies for targeting cancer and alleviating cancer-associated syndromes such as cachexia.