Biology of Glioblastomas and Brain Metastases and Potential Therapeutic Targets Unit

Our research focuses on identifying and understanding the biological mechanisms responsible for the onset of primitive and metastatic brain tumors. Our final goal is to lay the foundations for developing innovative treatments for these devastating diseases.

In order to do this, we are committed in:

1. Identifying novel genetic and epigenetic traits of glioblastoma (GBM) tumor-initiating cells (TICs) explaining the mechanism of GBM occurrence and providing new opportunity of treatment.
2. Understanding of the mechanisms behind the homing of metastatic cells in brain and the development of brain metastases from breast tumors
3. Exploiting tumor organoids directly derived from brain metastases, glioblastomas and rare tumors (e.g. thymoma) to validate biological hypotheses and to test new therapeutic approaches.
4. Carrying out comprehensive molecular characterization of blood extracellular vesicles to develop a reliable liquid biopsy, leading to personalized treatment. Our aim is being able of studying tumor molecular features, predicting therapy response, following treatment efficacy and tumor recurrence through a minimally invasive blood sample.

In our studies, we use a combination of patient samples, in vivomodels, next-generation sequencing, molecular and computational biology to study how brain tumors are maintained.