Research

The primary goal of the collaborative project is to decipher regulation of cell death in cancer cells to translate this new basic knowledge into the development of innovative therapies and clinical application for combating cancer (“from bench to bedside”).

The specific objectives can be summarised as follows:

to identify and characterise new cell death regulators
to elucidate cell death signaling pathways relevant to cancer (death receptor, mitochondrial and DNA damage pathway, cancer stem cells)
to classify distinct modes of cell death and to develop novel tools for their detection
to validate cell death regulators as prognostic biomarkers in primary tumor material
to evaluate cell death regulators as novel cancer therapeutics in preclinical cancer models

The research project is executed on five platforms corresponding to its five scientific objectives. Every platform contains one or more work packages (WP), each being performed in an interdisciplinary effort of several teams, ensuring a tight link between different teams, WP and platforms at the scientific and technological level.