Research Overview

Ionizing radiation leads to DNA damage, which primarily causes rapidly proliferating tumor cells to be damaged and killed. In addition, it has been shown in recent years that the tumor microenvironment, and particularly the stromal endothelial cells and fibroblasts play a crucial role in the radiation response and that the tumor stroma could thus be a promising therapeutic target. Thus, understanding the nature of the tumor environment today may be equally important for future cancer therapies as understanding cancer genetics per se. The research work of this junior research group focuses on the importance of endothelial cells (as well as fibroblasts) and therapy-induced vascular remodeling as well as tissue remodelling for radiosensitivity. Herein, crucial signaling molecules/pathways are aimed to be identified that could serve as therapeutically targets (i) to radiosensitize tumor tissue (and thus improve the efficiency of radiation therapy) or (ii) to protect the normal tissue during radiation (to reduce the risk of radiation-induced normal tissue damage).
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