20/01/2017

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Barbara M. Grüner joins DKTK Essen/Düsseldorf

After working for four years at Stanford Medical School as a post-doctoral fellow in the genetics laboratory of Monte Winslow, Ph.D., Barbara Grüner has received an appointment of the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) for a Young Investigator Group at the University Hospital Essen starting in January 2017.

Barbara Gruner's most recent research, funded by the Hope Funds for Cancer Research, was recently published in Nature Methods. The article, entitled "An in vivo multiplexed small-molecule screening platform", adds to the body of research available to scientists throughout the world. Nature Methods is one of the most prestigious and selective scientific publications and the selection of Grüner 's article for publication is both noteworthy and exciting for her, her laboratory and for the Hope Funds for Cancer Research. "We are delighted to learn of Barbara Grüner's receipt of a faculty appointment at the German Cancer Consortium at its partner site in Essen, Germany," said Leah Rush Cann, Chair of the Executive Committee for the Hope Funds for Cancer Research.

Grüner's work has developed new technological approaches to testing many drugs all at the same time in the same mouse. Her project will not only directly identify new drugs that can target cancer metastasis but will also improve the understanding of this very important process. Additionally, this platform and approach can be used in the future to test additional new drugs across different cancer types in a time and cost efficient manner. Her research will contribute to the understanding of this fatal process and enhance the ability to block cancer metastasis and therefore improve patient outcomes. This research has particular relevance to pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas.


About Barbara M. Grüner, Ph.D.

Barbara M Grüner, Ph.D., has been working and researching at Stanford University, in the laboratory of Monte Winslow, Ph.D. where she has been studying Pancreatic cancer, which is a highly lethal disease, mainly due to its ability to spread to other parts of the body and form secondary tumors through a process called metastasis. Despite the tremendous importance of this process, the mechanisms that drive metastasis remain poorly understood. Large drug screens have been performed on cancer cell lines grown in the laboratory, but cell lines do not resemble the complex situation in a cancer patient. Therefore, when performing drug screens to find inhibitors of complex processes like metastasis has remained difficult. On the other hand, testing thousands of drugs individually in mouse models of metastatic cancer is both time and cost prohibitive.

To overcome this problem, Grüner has developed a platform allowing her to test many drugs all at the same time in the same mouse. Her project will not only directly identify new drugs that can target cancer metastasis but will also improve our understanding of this very important process. Additionally, this platform can be used in the future to test additional new drugs across different cancer types in a time and cost efficient manner. This project will contribute to our understanding of this fatal process and enhance our ability to block cancer metastasis and therefore improve patient outcomes. The project addresses pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas.

Grüner received her Masters in Molecular Medicine from Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen, Nuremberg, Germany and her Ph.D, from Technical University Munich. The results of Grüner's work were published in the journal Nature Methods in October 2016. Click here to view paper.