An in-vivo screen for Cancer Biomarkers in collaboration with
Prof Stephen Cohen, University of Copenhagen & Dr TS Sridhar, St John’s Research Institute, Bangalore
lab members on this project
Current: Sanket Nagarkar, Pooja Vaid, Aditi Khatpe and Ruchi Wasnik.
Past : Casepr Groth, Govada Pravallika, Nelchi Prashali, Avantika Ahiya, Rachel Paul, Swati Badgujar
Our current and future work also involves functional genomics using Drosophila as a genetic system to study human genes, to develop fly models of human diseases and the application of the same in drug screening. In this direction, we have initiative a large genetic screen to identify novel tumor suppressors. Cancer genomes carry numerous genetic and epigenetic changes. Cancer cell transformation depends on genetic alterations to overcome constraints on cell proliferation and the tumor suppressive mechanisms that normally serve to eliminate aberrant cells. The mutational landscape of the tumor may contain conditional oncogenes or tumor suppressors that modulate important cellular regulatory networks. The constellation of genetic changes in a given tumor may affect prognosis as well as sensitivity to therapeutics.
We have initiated systematic in vivo functional studies to define the full genomic repertoire of tumor suppressors that cooperate with clinically important cancer driver mutations. We are using the in vivo genetic system (RNAi-based method) to screen for metastatic cancer that was developed by Hector-Herranz and Stephen Cohen. Preliminary data from their lab shows that one can identify new tumor suppressors that cooperate with known cancer drivers in Drosophila.