Lectures and seminars Disappearing Neighbors: Tumor–Epithelial Interactions & Translational Opportunities in Upper GI Cancer

Disappearing Neighbors: Tumor–Epithelial Interactions & Translational Opportunities in Upper GI Cancer

Speaker: Dr Marco Gerling

Cancers in the liver and pancreas are among the most aggressive solid tumours and are associated with some of the poorest prognoses. The two most common are pancreatic cancer and liver metastases from other primary tumours, particularly colorectal cancer.

Marco Gerling’s laboratory studies how these tumours invade healthy liver and pancreatic tissue. In this translational seminar, Dr Gerling will introduce key principles and current insights into tumour invasion in the liver and pancreas, also highlighting research conducted at Karolinska. Together with colleagues from Karolinska’s departments of surgery and oncology, his team addresses clinical and translational questions about how these tumours invade surrounding tissues.

The talk will cover how tumour cells interact with the resident epithelial cells of the tissues they invade: hepatocytes in the liver and acinar cells in the pancreas. These epithelial cell populations respond to tumour invasion in distinct ways that depend on tumour aggressiveness and may, in turn, actively shape invasion at the tumour–normal tissue interface. Because tumour-induced changes reorganise tissue on a scale that extends beyond the microscopic level, they can, in principle, be detected directly in patients. This concept forms the basis of IMAGINE-1, a first-in-human PET study investigating the imaging of tumour-induced fibrosis in liver tumours before surgery.

What is Cancer Core Europe (CCE)?

Cancer Core Europe is a consortium of seven leading cancer centres (www.cancercoreeurope.eu). CCEs members are driven by a strong will to reshape the cancer research model to ultimately increase the European Union’s competitiveness as a place to conduct cutting-edge research that’s translated to the clinic to deliver more personalized medicine.

What is the content and aim of the CCE Lecture?

The CCE Lecture series is a CCE event that educates and informs about state-of-the-art research within the seven centers and aims to increase awareness among partners about each other’s activities and potential for collaboration, as well as outside.