You are invited to attend this seminar hosted by the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology:
Date: Tuesday, 9 April 2024
Time: 11.00AM – 12.00PM
Venue: IMCB Seminar Room 03-46, Level 3 Proteos, Biopolis, Singapore 138673 (Physical)
Speaker: Prof. Uri Ben-David, Tel Aviv University
Host: Prof. Nick Barker, IMCB
Cancer Aneuploidy: From Evolutionary Pressures to Cellular Vulnerabilities
Abstract
Aneuploidy, an imbalanced number of chromosomes or chromosome arms, is a genetic hallmark of cancer cells, yet aneuploidy remains a biological enigma and a missed opportunity for cancer therapy. My lab combines experimental and computational approaches to dissect the basic biology underlying cancer aneuploidy, to track its origins, and to uncover its cellular consequences. By doing so, we strive to expand our understanding of the genetic basis of cancer, and to make aneuploidy a therapeutic target for cancer treatment.
In this seminar, I will describe two major research efforts that are currently ongoing in the lab:
1) First, I will discuss how the cellular context affects aneuploidy fitness, and describe several recent studies in which we assessed the contributions of genomic and environmental factors to aneuploidy evolution. I will focus on an unpublished study in which we revealed an important role for a specific recurrent aneuploidy in brain metastasis. Together, these studies provide insights into the selection pressures that shape the evolution of aneuploidy during tumorigenesis, with ramifications for proper aneuploidy modeling.
2) Next, I will discuss our efforts to identify aneuploidy-induced cellular vulnerabilities in order to selectively kill aneuploid cancer cells. I will focus on unpublished studies in which we performed systematic profiling and functional screening of isogenic cells. This study provides a novel comprehensive resource for genetically-matched karyotipically-stable cells of various aneuploidy states, and reveals novel therapeutically-relevant cellular dependencies of aneuploid cells.
Biography
Prof. Ben-David is an Associate Professor of Cancer Genetics at Tel Aviv University. Prof. Ben-David obtained his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and completed his postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
The Ben-David lab (www.bendavidlab.com&umid=34805923-113F-4E06-843F-F7D6B1D67AB8&auth=6e3fe59570831a389716849e93b5d483c90c3fe4-962d61e669da7eff28b0eb0fafd54cce0168e436) applies genomic and functional approaches to studying a fundamental trait of cancer, called aneuploidy – a change in the number of chromosomes in cancer cells. Ultimately, his research aspires to expand the understanding of the genetic basis of cancer, and to open new avenues for personalized cancer treatments.
Prof. Ben-David is the recipient of multiple grants and awards, including the 2020 AACR ‘Next Generation Star’ Award, the 2020 ‘ERC Starting Grant’, the 2021 ‘Cells Young Investigator Award’, the 2022 ‘Krill Prize’ by the Wolf Foundation, and the 2023 ‘Kadar Award for Outstanding Research’. Starting 2022, Prof. Ben-David is a member of the EMBO Young Investigator Program.
