ERC Consolidator grant awarded to Anna Vähärautio
Emergence of treatment resistance in ovarian cancer: time travel on cellular level - Anna VähärautioERC funded project by Anna Vähärautio studies how past stress encounters induce treatment resistance in ovarian cancer cells. The project will explore the histories of individual cancer cells. How previous adaptations to stressors shape the adaptation and fate of individual cancer cells during anti-cancer treatment? Is it possible to block treatment induced adaptation by correctly timed co-treatments?
Main objectives of the project are:
To develop a novel methodology that combines sister cell lineage tracing to stress recording in individual cancer cells. This enables cellular time travel across the period
where treatment resistance develops.
Apply the results from this time travel to block both pre-existing and induced, adaptive resistance by sequential therapies.
In the future, the project’s results will help to identify effective and personalized sequential treatment strategies for patients with poor response ovarian cancer. The project is grounded on previous method development from the group, and the discovery of a stressed cellular state that is associated with both pre-existing and induced chemotherapy resistance in ovarian cancer.
Project name and duration
What doesn’t kill you: Overcoming primed and adaptive resistance in ovarian cancer (STRONGER), 2024-2029.