About
Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology
2017 Seminar Series
Friday 20th January — at 12.00 pm — Amphi Monod (Bât.66)
SEMINAR “Cancers with early developmental origins: learning from fly neural stem cells”
Invited Speaker ⇒ Cédric Maurange
From IBDM (Institut de Biologie du Développement de Marseille)
UMR 7288 – CNRS
Hosted by Pauline Spéder
Abstract : Cancers with early developmental origins such as pediatric cancers are still poorly understood. What is their cell of origin? Why do they progress so rapidly? What are the underlying gene networks and deregulated developmental programs? We are using Drosophila as an archaic model to understand this phenomenon, and more generally the basic principles of tumorigenesis. Recently, we have identified a genetic module that is normally only active in fly neural stem cells during early development, but can be coopted upon early genetic alteration to drive rapid tumor growth. I will discuss the underlying mechanisms and how our results reveal the important role of conserved RNA binding proteins in the regulation of neural stem cell self-renewal during development and tumorigenesis.