Jul 18, 2020
Christian Frezza focuses on
tissue-specific carcinogenesis and specifically metabolic pathways
in an attempt to achieve the prevention of cancer progression.
In this podcast he addresses
- How tumor and metastases cells vary and why that's important,
- How a finding regarding intermediates in metabolism that have signaling roles connecting metabolic pathways to oncogenesis produced a paradigm shift in cancer studies, and
- Why scientists are attempting to use more sophisticated approaches to starving cancer such as targeting two different metabolic pathways simultaneously.
Christian Frezza works at the
Medical Research Council (MRC) as a program leader in the MRC
Cancer Unit at the University of Cambridge, a unit that
investigates carcinogens, other cancer causes, differentiations
between functionality of
cancer types, and the
prevention of cancer.
His lab focuses specifically on metabolic determinants of cancerous
transformation, which means understanding how cancer cells find
their nutrients to grow and proliferate. He explains that this area
of research is very exciting because they are revealing new aspects
of cancer biology that can address therapies for different
cancer types as well as a way to understand
carcinogens.
He explains how tumors and metastases have very different the nutrient needs. For example, a metastasis has a metabolism need closer to the nutrient needs of tissue around it. Furthermore, while they know that all cancer causes increased glucose consumption, there are many differences between how cancer types metabolize.
He describes two important
questions of his research: first, whether they can restrict some
specific nutrients to affect growth; and second, if they can find
that by using specific nutrients, they can identify certain markers
of cancer transformation through identifying metabolites.
Finally, overall this research will help understand the
pathophysiology of cancer and mechanistic aspects of it. He also
explains complications of the research and their findings as well
as important steps and discoveries in the field.
To learn more, see his lab's
website at
mrc-cu.cam.ac.uk/research/Christian-frezza-folder
and follow him on twitter
as @FrezzaLab.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK