Short portrait of the CRC 850 “Control of Cell Motility in Morphogenesis, Cancer Invasion and Metastasis”
More than 400,000 patients are diagnosed with cancer in Germany every year. Despite significant advances in research and treatment, about 50% of these patients are still going to die of their disease, because several aspects of tumour biology are still not completely understood. Among these aspects, tissue invasion and metastasis are the most complex characteristics since they involve tumour cell autonomous as well as non-autonomous processes. Importantly, metastasis represents the main cause of death for tumour patients. Therefore, the CRC 850 is dedicated to the analysis and therapeutic exploitation of the cellular and molecular events driving metastatic tumours.
The working program of this CRC is based on the emerging concept that most signalling pathways controlling normal embryonic development are aberrantly activated in human tumours. Therefore, the analysis of the function and regulation of these pathways during development will help to understand the mechanisms underlying pathological motility in cancer and vice versa. The inclusion of clinical research groups allows the assessment of experimental data from these model systems for their clinical relevance within the framework provided by the Comprehensive Cancer Centre Freiburg. Thus, the CRC 850 links the expertise of developmental biologists, basic and translational cancer researchers to one scientific network with the unifying goal to understand the molecular mechanisms underlying tumour cell invasion and metastasis. New insights delivered from this CRC may then offer novel strategies to allow for an earlier detection and prediction of metastatic behaviour and its efficient treatment.
The CRC-initiative has three interdependent long-term goals:
- To understand control mechanisms of physiological cell movements in development and adult tissues
(research area A) - To analyze the mechanisms driving aberrant cancer cell motility in tumour invasion and metastasis
(research area B) - To translate these findings to human cancer as well as to assess their clinical relevance and application potential
(research area C)
All three research areas are strongly supported by the central projects, which provide multidisciplinary expertise and state-of-the-art infrastructure for the analysis of tumour biopsies and monitoring of tumour growth and metastatic spread. In addition, the CRC 850 hosts the integrated research training group (IRTG) with the mission to provide the doctoral (PhD and MD/PhD) students of the CRC with a structured environment promoting their skills and scientific education. A detailed description of the individual and central projects can be found here