Project Description:

Associate Professor Ron Firestein of the Hudson Institute of Medical Research considers that to develop new targeted treatments, it is crucial to understand the processes that drive cancer cells to survive and spread — so that they can be disrupted. In collaboration with Assistant Professor Ruth Perets of Rambam Medical Centre, Israel Institute of Technology, the team will focus its project on examining PAX8 (Paired-Box Gene 8), a protein in the body responsible for many of the cancerous properties of the disease. It’s hypothesised that diminishing PAX8 could reduce the ability of cancer cells to progress. However, PAX8 has proven technically difficult to target so the team will target the proteins that drive PAX8, particularly in high grade serous carcinoma cases of ovarian cancer. Assistant Professor Perets will provide the required samples to be evaluated by Associate Professor Firestein through the use of state-of-the-art genomic technology including CRISPR screening, which enables thousands of genes to be assessed simultaneously.