[2019 Fall Life Sciences & IBB Seminar]

 

▶Subject: Extracellular Vesicles as Mediators and Biomarkers of Cancer Progression
 

▶Speaker: Prof. Andreas Möller (University of Queensland)
 

▶Date: 4:30PM/Sep. 6(Fri.)/2019

 

▶Place: Auditorium(1F), Postech Biotech Center

 

​▶Abctract
Cancer metastasis is the main cause of cancer-related mortality. For a cancer to spread from the primary site to distant organs, a large number of essential steps have to be overcome. One of those is the suppression of anti-cancer immune responses at the distant organs. We and others showed that cancer-secreted factors, including extracellular vesicles (EVs), are mediators of creating immune-suppressed, permissive environments at distant organs before the arrival of cancer cells. These privileged sites are called pre-metastatic niches. EVs, especially exosomes, contain proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, with some of the cargo being depending on the cell-of-origin. Therefore, EVs and exosomes are thought to be potential biomarkers of cancer.
In this presentation, I will summarize the research approaches done in my group. I will discuss novel data on how cancer-derived exosomes can specifically distribute to certain organs in the body, depending on the tumourmicroenvironment of the primary tumours. These modifications increase pre-metastatic niche formation and metastatic spread. Analysingthe content of cancer-derived exosomes, I will additionally show intriguing clinical data on how the content of plasma exosomes can be used to diagnose cancer in the first place and then to predict the outcome of a patient at baseline. Together with work from other groups, these findings are likely to enable the early detection of cancer in at-risk populations, tailor the therapeutic interventions to the specific sensitivities of the individual’s cancer and therefore positively impact on the survival chances of cancer patients.