Event



The Evolution of Cancer Malignancy: how cows beat cancer?

Seminar with Dr. Günter Wagner
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wagner

Cancer malignancy is the result of an interaction between cancer cells and the cancer associated stromal tissue. The latter consists of the stromal fibroblasts, the extracellular matrix they produce, and the immune cells attracted to the site of the cancer lesion. Consequently, evolutionary changes in the biology of the stromal cells can affect the malignancy rate of different species, with the contrast between humans and cattle as an instructive example. In this presentation I will present published and current work aimed at identifying the molecular mechanisms underlying species differences in malignancy rate (which is different from the rate of tumorigenesis). In particular we focus on the role of fibroblasts to affect the ability of cancer cells to invade and show that manipulating human cells to assume a phenotype similar to that of cow fibroblasts can increase their resistance to cancer cell invasion. These results suggest that investigating species differences in malignancy rates might pave the way to novel approaches to manage cancer in humans.

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https://eeb.yale.edu/people/faculty/gunter-wagner