Understanding the mechanisms that underlie the genetic and non-genetic heterogeneity within individual tumours, and characterising the role it plays on metastatic progression and treatment response.
Professor Fred Hollande's research group aims to understand mechanisms that underlie the genetic and non-genetic heterogeneity within individual tumours, and to characterise the role played by this heterogeneity on the growth, survival and treatment response of metastatic cancer. The group also aims to characterise the molecular mechanisms that underlie the phenotypic plasticity of cancer cells, and to understand how this plasticity affects the response of tumour-initiating cells to anti-cancer treatments.
Translational objectives of the group's work include the discovery of novel biomarkers providing early prognosis and prediction of treatment response, and the improvement of therapeutic efficacy by targeting cells that drive disease relapse after therapy. This is achieved by combining the phenotypic and genotypic analysis of samples freshly obtained from cancer patients and by characterising molecular networks that drive drug resistance in subpopulations of cancer cells.
Benefiting from the collaborative efforts of surgeons, medical oncologists, genomics specialists, statisticians and systems biologists from several VCCC member organisations, this project uses an innovative approach to characterise and target these drug-resistant cancer cell subpopulations.
Contact and more information
Professor Fred Hollande
Department of Clinical Pathology
frederic.hollande@unimelb.edu.au
+61 3 8559 7023
Flagship project | Identifying drivers of treatment resistance in metastatic colorectal cancer
A project aiming to identify which metastatic tumour cells drive treatment resistance and/or post-treatment regrowth and to characterise the mechanisms that underlie this ability, in a collaboration with the Cancer Research Centre of Lyon, France.
Cutting-edge optical barcoding technique enables tracking of multiple tumour cell subclones over time and the purification of cell subsets that display differential behaviours in response to treatment, allowing for the analysis of both non-genetic and genetically-driven resistance mechanisms.