Maria Genander

Project summary

The skin as a model system for normal tissue and cancer

Cancer develops when the processes that regulate and limit cell division in the body break down. Maria Genander compares proteins in diseased skin cells with the same proteins in normal skin cells in order to improve our understanding of this process. In the long term, she aims to contribute to new strategies for treating patients with skin cancer.

 

Stem cells are responsible for generating all the specialised cell types within an organ. Stem cells in the skin, for example, enable the continuous production of new skin cells and the repair of damaged tissue.

 

Cancer arises when the processes that regulate and limit cell division cease to function properly. However, these processes have been shown to share important similarities with the mechanisms that regulate normal stem cells. By studying a family of proteins found in both normal stem cells and tumour cells in the skin, Maria Genander aims to further elucidate this relationship.

 

The research project will increase our understanding of how normal stem cells replace lost cells in the skin – and how this mechanism is exploited and altered in cancer stem cells. The aim is to identify new strategies for treating skin cancer.