From pathogenesis to precision medicine in women’s cancers

In the last decade, large-scale next-generation sequencing of DNA and RNA allowed for a new comprehension of cancer, “the emperor of all maladies” at unprecedented scale. Each tumor is characterized by specific genomic alterations that include multiple gene mutations, amplifications and/or deletions. These cancer cells interact with different components of the tumor microenvironment. Our lab focus on the correlation between genomic alterations of cancer cells, the immune infiltrate and response to therapies in women’s cancer. We are committed to precision medicine by combining our knowledge of genomic alterations of cancer cells and the immune composition of the tumor microenvironment in order to develop new target therapies. We use laser capture microdissection, next-generation sequencing, digital pathology, multiplexed immunohistochemistry and artificial intelligence to reach our goal.

Currently, our main research topic is women’s cancer related to inherited BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations. A second research topic of our lab is pathogenesis of ovarian cancer. We are investigating the cell of origin of different ovarian cancer histotypes in order to develop new screening tools and target therapies of the “silent killer”. The lab’s research is strongly oriented toward real world translation of these findings into diagnostic and therapeutic tools to improve the lives of women with cancer.