IGM-IFOM Joint Seminars – Marco Foiani
The next IGM-IFOM seminar will ben on May 6th, at 14:30
The speaker Marco Foiani, Scientific Director of IFOM, entitled:
“Mechanism controlling Genome and Nuclear Integrity”
DDX11 loss causes replication stress and pharmacologically exploitable DNA repair defects
Mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 tumor suppressor genes predispose individuals to breast and ovarian cancers. These cancers are treated in the clinic with platinum drugs and inhibitors of polyADP-ribose polymerase (PARP), which cause lesions requiring homologous recombination repair activities mediated by BRCA1 and BRCA2. However, BRCA1 and BRCA2 tumors often acquire resistance to chemotherapy, either by somatic reversion or by acquiring homologous recombination proficiency, leading to aggressive tumor growth.
Thus, there is an urgent need to identify ways to potentiate the therapy and overcome acquired resistance of homologous recombination-deficient cancer cells. In a recent work, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA (PNAS) by researchers of IGM and IFOM, Dana Branzei and Nanda Kumar Jegadesan identify that the helicase DDX11 is critical to mitigate replication stress in a range of cancers by facilitating upstream steps in homologous recombination repair related to efficient resection of double strand breaks. Importantly, DDX11 acts in manners non-redundant with BRCA1 and BRCA2. Strikingly, this study shows thar targeting DDX11 improves chemotherapy response in both chemotherapy sensitive and drug-resistant BRCA1/2-mutated cancers that regained homologous recombination proficiency by suppressor mutation or somatic reversion. Thus, DDX11 provides a mechanism of replication stress tolerance in cancers, a finding that can be exploited therapeutically in the future through the development of specific inhibitors of DDX11 helicase activity.
Nanda Kumar Jegadesan and Dana Branzei. DDX11 loss causes replication stress and pharmacologically exploitable DNA repair defects. Proc Natl Acad Sci, doi:10.1073/pnas.2024258118.
IGM-IFOM Joint Seminars – Paolo Colombi
The next IGM-IFOM seminar will ben on April 22nd, at 14:30
The speaker Paolo Colombi, IFOM, will present the seminars entitled:
“Lem domain proteins control adaptation efficiency through copy number variations”
IGM-IFOM Joint Seminars – Andrea Ciliberto
The next IGM-IFOM seminar will ben on April 8th, at 14:30
The speaker Andrea Ciliberto, IFOM, will present the seminars entitled:
“Stopping the unstoppable: how cells react to stimuli impairing cell proliferation”
CONGRATULATIONS DR. BASSO!
It is with great affection that the researchers and all colleagues at IGM do congratulate Sammy Basso on his master’s degree in Molecular Biology achieved on March 24 at the University of Padua. One more time we like to remember with gratitude all the years of collaboration between IGM and AIPROSAB and Sammy’s commitment to the Italian Network for Laminopathies. But above all we want to remember the friendship born between Sammy and us of the IGM in Bologna, the wonderful period of the Sammy’s internship in IGM, despite the misadventure of the pandemic, the Sammy commitment in the preparation of his thesis and the enthusiasm he had in our scientific discussions.
IGM-IFOM Seminars – Simone Sabbioneda
The next IGM-IFOM seminar will ben on March 29th, at 14:30
The speaker Simone Sabbioneda, IGM, will present his work on “A riddle wrapped in an enigma: the regulation of DNA translesion synthesis”
IGM-IFOM Joint Seminars – Paolo Miuri
The third event of the IGM-IFOM seminar series will be anticipated to February 12nd at 14:30.
The seminar will be held by Paolo Mauri on “Physical perturbations of the cell nucleus“.
CNR-EMBL Scientific Collaboration Meeting
On January 28th, 2021, a scientific meeting organized by the Department of Biomedical Sciences of the CNR and EMBL and entitled “EMBL – Europe’s Life Science Research Institution” will be held via Zoom platform.
The event will be in the form of a Zoom webinar which can be registered at the following link
After registration a confirmation email with the information you need to attend the webinar will be sent.
The event program can be downloaded at this link