Head/Neck Cancer Prevention Program
Recent major advances in basic and clinical cancer research are leading to increasingly personalized approaches to cancer treatment. There is an urgent need to develop similar approaches to cancer prevention.
Image by gpointstudio on Freepik
There are significant differences in cancer susceptibility among individuals of the two sexes and of different genetic ancestries that can cannot be only attributed to different life styles. A complex interplay between genetic and epigenetic determinants can have a different and at times opposite impact on predisposition to various cancer types. There are also substantially different responses among individuals to anti-cancer treatments, in which sex- and ancetsry-related differences play a part. Cancer risk is the combined result of concomitant alterations of cancer cells of origin, the stromal compartment and organismic functions, most notably the immune system.
We aim at establishing an innovative program and new paradigm in personalized cancer prevention, at the interface between basic and clinical research with Head/Neck and skin cancer (Squamous Cell Carcinomas, salivary gland tumors, melanomas) as benchmarks of major clinical significance. Within this framework, we will consider cancer prevention, in two of its main forms, secondary and tertiary :
Unique approaches on which the program is based :
A) Acquisition of Head/Neck and skin cancer samples and matching normal tissue from male versus female patients recovered from the clinical practice (at the time of surgical excision and from relapses ), with (i) culturing and characterization of the corresponding cancer cells of origin and surrounding stroma cells; (ii) concomitant genetic (SNP profiles) and epigenetic (transcriptomic / DNA methylome profiles) analysis.
B) Establishment of patients-derived organoids with retention of cancer cells and surrounding stromal cells, for (i) targets identification; (ii) testing of available drugs for prevention of premalignant to malignant cancer conversion and decreased risk of cancer recurrencies and spreading after removal of primary lesions.
Who we are?
An innovative program and new paradigm in personalized cancer prevention, at the interface between basic and clinical research and patients’ outreach, with the ORL Service Unit at the CHUV and Biochemistry Department at the UNIL as housing institutions and the International Cancer Prevention Institute and the EU / Marie Curie Innovative Training Network as partners.
research programs:
- Skin aging and cancer prevention
- Local recurrences of head and neck cancer : exploring the clonal dynamics of recurrences with cellular barcoding
- Next-generation oncology therapy targeting cancer associated fibroblasts through long noncoding RNAs
- Squamosal cell carcinoma model
- Retrospective studies of Head/Neck cancer patients’ clinical behaviour and identification of predictive biomarkers
- Sinonasal undifferentiated carcinomas