michael_chan

Signaling-mediated epigenetic silencing of tumor suppressor genes in ovarian cancer

Aberrant TGFβ signaling pathway may alter the expression of down-stream targets and promotes ovarian carcinogenesis. However, the mechanism of this impairment is not fully understood. By ChIP-chip and expression microarray, we have previously identified several SMAD4 targets in an immortalized ovarian surface epithelial cells. Bioinformatic analyses identified several SMAD transcriptional modules that predict expression changes after TGF-β activation. Knockdown of SMAD4 in CP70 ovarian cancer cells showed an increase in promoter methylation in some of those SMAD4 targets as demonstrated by sequencing-based analysis.

mohit_kumar

Implications of hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal phenotype in metastasis: how theory can help understand cancer biology better

Metastasis claims 90% of all cancer-related deaths and remains clinically insuperable. The hallmarks of metastases are processes known as Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) and its reverse Mesenchymal to Epithelial Transition (MET) that enable primary carcinoma cells to migrate and start new tumors at distant organs. I will present an integrated theoretical and experimental approach that elucidates how cancer cells undergo EMT and MET, and how these transitions affect their ability to initiate new tumors.

sebastian_maurer_stroh

Bioinformatics in Influenza surveillance: From sequence to structure to molecular mechanisms with the FluSurver

Bioinformatics can play an important role in infectious disease surveillance and research from epidemiological data processing with geographic and temporal visualization to comparing genome phylogenies and structural modelling of mutations. As a classical example, interest in new influenza outbreaks as well as regular surveillance of circulating seasonal strains produce a constant flow of influenza genome sequences that need to be analysed and interpreted for epidemiological and phenotypic features.