Breast Cancer Research
Our research is translational, as defined by Rubio DM et al. in 2010 (Acad. Med.): “Translational research fosters the multidirectional integration of basic research, patient-oriented research, and population-based research, with the long-term aim of improving the health of the public”. Our team is composed of medical doctors, research scientists and bioinformatics engineers who gather their knowledges to better understand the biology of cancers and to improve the choice of treatment by clinicians. Since 2011, our team works on breast cancers, in collaboration with the Medical Oncology department of Prof. G. Jerusalem at the CHU Liège. The Medical Oncology department is collecting plasma samples from all patients diagnosed with breast cancer and involved in longitudinal studies at the CHU Liège. The tumor tissues used for diagnostic are then archived at the CHU biobank and available for research purpose. Tissues are coming from either diagnostic needle biopsies, surgeries or residual tumors remaining from treatment. Clinical data from all patients and their response to treatment are collected by Data-Managers.
Results from experiments, performed on plasma, tissues and clinical data, are connected and used as starting material for two projects: Fundamental research, with a clinical application not expected before a decade, and applied research, with a short-time expected clinical application. Applied research is led by the Biomarker and Biomarker signature discoveries for purposes of diagnostic, prognostic or prediction of patient treatment response. Our specific fields of expertise are (i) non-coding RNA and their role in gene expression deregulation observed in breast cancer and (ii) liquid biopsies. Our technical know-how is common to all genetic laboratories (PCR; Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS); In situ-hybridization), but we also have strong competences in molecular and cellular biology (cell culture, cell transfection, lentiviral vector, immuno-histology), allowing to molecularly validate genomic data. We are highly specialized in the NGS of exomes and transcriptomes on formol-fixed and paraffin embedded tissues, which is the main available material coming from clinics.
