Prof. Andreas Trumpp Stem Cells and Cancer

In the last decade, it has become evident that specific signaling pathways that control crucial steps during embryonic development are often inappropriately reactivated during tumorigenesis.

In addition cancer cells seem to take advantage of cellular principles inherent to normal stem cells which are crucial for maintenance, repair and regenerative processes of most adult tissues such as the intestinal epithelium or the hematopoietic system.

Like immortal cancer cells normal stem cells have the capacity of life-long self-renewal. Stem cell self-renewal is a physiological mechanism that maintains a small pool of cells that are able to proliferate indefinitely (immortal stem cells), but at the same time produce a variety of differentiated cells that fulfill and maintain the function of the body.

Our research takes advantage of various mouse models in which we have altered the expression of a number of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. We use those model systems to study the molecular and cellular basis of stem cell self-renewal, the interaction of stem cells with their specialized microenvironment (stem cell niche) and the relationship between stem cells and tumorigenesis.

Detailed information on the project can be found at
http://www.dkfz.de/en/stammzellen-und-krebs/index.php