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Centre for Cancer Research
Cancer & developmental biology
Laboratory head: Professor Neil Watkins
The overall goal of the Cancer & Developmental Biology laboratory is to study how aberrant activation of embryonic signalling pathways contributes to the initiation, growth and self-renewal of cancer. This work is based on the idea that a very limited number of signalling pathways, which are highly conserved in evolution, are required for self-renewal in development, organ repair and cancer. The primary focus of Professor Watkins' laboratory is the Hedgehog (Hh) pathway. His team has played a role in understanding this pathway's biological role in cancer and repair, and helped in the development of new ways of inhibiting the pathway in cancer. The clinical focus is small cell lung cancer (SCLC), with the goal of inhibiting the regeneration of tumours following chemotherapy. The team's experimental work includes mouse genetics, epigenetics, stem cell biology, neural development and preclinical models of cancer. The aims outlined below summarize the projects under development in the Watkins laboratory:
- Developing better preclinical models of lung cancer by taking tumour samples from individual patients and maintaining them in vivo as xenografts in mice.
- To better understand how Hh signalling works in cancer, and how it contributes to tumour regeneration through tumour stem cells.
- By studying genetically modified mice, understand how genetic and epigenetic events interact with aberrant Hh signalling to initiate cancer.
- Understanding why tumour cells fail to differentiate by studying how some tumour suppressor genes induce differentiation in development.
- Collaborate with industry in setting up clinical trials of novel Hh antagonists in Australia.
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