Vall d'Hebron Talks by VHIR 'Persister Cell Biology and Cancer Cell Vulnerabilities'

Speaker: Dr. Oskar Marín, Institut German Trias i Pujol (IGTP)

During my career, I have developed a strong interest to understand the cancer cell plasticity and the underlying transcriptional mechanisms. The combination of exhaustive Patient Derived Xenografts profiling with single cell technologies led to identifying melanoma cell vulnerabilities, proposing a completely novel perspective in cancer treatment, to target the non-genetic mechanisms of drug tolerance to eradicate the cancer cells. Resulting in a research article in Cell journal (Rambow et al, 2018) and a publication in Cancer Cell journal (Marin-Bejar et al, 2021).  

I aim to establish a novel research program that will capitalize on the recent development of single cell transcriptome and epigenome profiling techniques with the aim of during cancer progression and therapy resistance.  

The principal objectives of my future research as independent researcher will be: 

• Elucidate the non-genetic reprogramming that govern drug-tolerant, de-differentiated cell states by studying minimal residual disease. 
• Understanding the transcriptional adaptation rewiring of cancer cells to overcome stresses (changes in the tumor microenvironment, cancer progression and/or drug pressure). 

Identify the vulnerabilities of the persister cells by single cell transcriptomic profiling and study novel drug combinatorial strategies to eradicate the resistant cells and prevent the appearance of relapse

Host: Dr. Juan Ángel Recio, Head of group Biomedical Research in Melanoma (VHIR)