Alexan­dros Drainas

The quest to elim­i­nate ecD­NA in can­cer cells 

Abstract 

Can­cer evolves when cells accu­mu­late genet­ic or epi­ge­net­ic changes, lead­ing to uncon­trolled growth, immune eva­sion, and treat­ment resis­tance. These alter­ations may occur con­tin­u­ous­ly, increas­ing can­cer cell het­ero­gene­ity and pro­vid­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty for adap­ta­tion to chal­lenges such as drug treat­ments. A key adap­ta­tion mech­a­nism is gene ampli­fi­ca­tion, often via extra­chro­mo­so­mal DNA (ecD­NA), which can dri­ve can­cer cells towards rapid growth and drug resistance. 

Hence, tar­get­ing ecD­NA as a mol­e­cule can be the Achilles’ heel for can­cer treat­ment. In our group, we are estab­lish­ing method­olo­gies for screen­ing extrin­sic and intrin­sic fac­tors that affect ecD­NA main­te­nance. Thus, the quest to iden­ti­fy fac­tors that elim­i­nate ecD­NA, while chal­leng­ing, could unrav­el the gen­er­a­tion of com­bi­na­to­r­i­al treat­ments tar­get­ing ecD­NA along­side genes of inter­est, lead­ing to new ther­a­peu­tic strategies 

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