Who We Are

Understanding childhood cancer development for better cures

Mission - Current cancer research is at an important cross road. Using novel sequencing technologies, cancer genomes are being decoded at a rapidly increasing pace. Such knowledge can be exploited to identify patient tailored and more potent new drugs and drug combinations providing the basis for so-called precision medicine.

Tools - We make combined use of high throughput genomic and proteomics technologies, cellular model systems, animal models and bioinformatics to gain insights into the role of genes and signalling networks in initiation and development of childhood cancer as well as processes leading to treatment resistance, the main cause of cancer deaths.

Childhood cancers - Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), brain cancer and neuroblastoma are the three most frequent cancers occurring in children. Survival rates for ALL have dramatically increased over the past decades but survival chances for relapsed cases are grim. Increase in survival for children suffering from brain cancer or neuroblastoma have been modest and current therapy has severe short and long term side effects. Given these facts, there is a pressing need for novel insights and discoveries that can pave the way for more effective and less toxic treatment.

Neuroblastoma is a less well known childhood tumor arising from the sympathetic nervous system.

© Arash Hamidian

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