Projects
PROJECTS
Research project on epitheloid sarcomas at DKFZ
Biological, functional and clinical characterization of epithelioid sarcomas for the development of innovative and gentle therapeutic options.
An international and interdisciplinary team of young physicians, veterinarians, biologists and bioinformaticians is researching malignant soft tissue and bone tumors in young people at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) Heidelberg. This includes epithelioid sarcoma (ES). The main objective is to develop gentle treatment options that, unlike conventional polychemotherapy or surgical treatments, are not associated with significant acute and chronic side effects. The implementation concept also includes close collaboration with other leading institutions in Germany and abroad.
Since the very limited data available to date on small ES case series do not provide new insights for the improved treatment of ES patients, the scientists are working on creating a large, multidimensional genomic data set. The goal is to evaluate approximately 50 tumors. Nucleic acids (mRNA and DNA) will then be extracted from these tumors and subjected to standardized sequencing procedures and microarray technologies at DKFZ. These "omics" data are also to be made available to the scientific community to help researchers worldwide to better understand and research ES.
Many tumors exhibit a number of molecular changes, for which it is often unclear whether they play an important role for the respective tumor (driver mutations) or are irrelevant side effects (passenger mutations). Using established cell lines, the researchers want to determine to which of the two groups certain mutations can be assigned.
With the knowledge gained, cellular signaling pathways can be derived that promote the malignant behavior of ES. These signaling pathways will be selectively blocked with targeted therapeutics and pharmacological inhibitors to test whether this can attenuate the malignant behavior of ES cells in vitro and in vivo or even drive the cells to cell death.
In the long term, the scientists, in collaboration with the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) and the Clinical Trail Unit (ZIPO) of the Hopp Children's Tumor Center (KiTZ) in Heidelberg, plan to offer individualized treatment trials to patients with advanced ES for whom there are no longer established conventional therapy options. These treatment trials will be based on the comprehensive evaluation of the patient's own tumor with regard to genomic characterization and possible driver mutations.
Project management
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Grünewald
Head of Department "Translational Pediatric Sarcoma Research" German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
and Hopp Children's Tumor Center (KiTZ) Heidelberg
Project Team DKFZ / KiTZ
The international and interdisciplinary team of young physicians, veterinarians, biologists and bioinformaticians at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) / Hopp Children's Tumor Center (KiTZ) Heidelberg researches malignant soft tissue and bone tumors in young people. This includes epithelioid sarcoma.
Further information
https://www.dkfz.de/de/translationale-paediatrische-sarkomforschung/index.php
