Transformation of Pre-Clinics into Clinics by Organoids

Due to the demographic change, the number of cancer cases will significantly increase in the next decades in the aging Western population. Cancer is currently one of the main threats for a population, which aims for healthy aging. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to develop strategies to enhance treatment outcome and to understand the mechanisms of therapy resistance, to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. In the last decade, a central role of the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) AXL has been described in the escape from therapy responses. In this context, the TOPICO faculty, which consists of scientists from the Medical University of Vienna and the University of Applied Sciences Krems, aims to investigate the importance of the AXL protein for therapy resistance. To elucidate the role of AXL, the TOPICO faculty will perform a systematic approach by creating pharmacological inhibitors, developing innovative patient-derived cell culture models (organoids), modulating relevant pathological pathways and finally validating the findings in patient samples. The knowledge gained from the project will lead to a better understanding of therapy resistance and consequently development of new drugs and biomarkers that decisively will improve the quality of life of cancer patients. The TOPICO project is a novel PhD program, which is embedded in the Malignant Disease Program of the Medical University Vienna but also synergistically extends important contents of the Master Program "Medical and Pharmaceutical Biotechnology" of IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems. This creates a unique environment for Ph.D. students to develop their individual PhD projects in a well-founded network of students and faculty, thereby promoting their later careers in international cancer research in industrial or academic settings.