Forscherdatenbank
Prof. Dr. Olaf Witt
Hopp Children’s Cancer Center at the NCT Heidelberg (KiTZ), University Hospital Heidelberg
Im Neuenheimer Feld 280
69120 Heidelberg
Programm
Molecularly Targeted Therapy (MTT)
Übersicht
Olaf Witt’s major interest is the identification of biomarkers for response prediction in precision medicine as well as in developing rationale treatment combination strategies to overcome resistance in pediatric oncology. Currently, Olaf Witt is coordinating the (inter)national precision program in pediatric oncology termed “INFORM” (INdividualized Therapy FOr Relapsed Malignancies in Childhood) since 2015 and is developing innovative phase I/II biomarker driven combination trials in pediatric oncology.
DKTK Junior Group Leader for Cancer Systems Biology
Single-cell approaches have not only revealed a wide variety of cell states, characterized by cells exhibiting striking differences in their transcriptional profile, but have also illuminated the mechanisms underlying state transitions in health and disease. Cellular plasticity and adaptive state changes have recently emerged as a basis for therapeutic resistance in cancer, and a better understanding of how cell state transitions are regulated is critical to develop therapeutic approaches that can overcome therapy resistance.
Our research focuses on understanding the mechanisms driving non-genetic cellular heterogeneity and therapy resistance in malignancy. Using novel single-cell sequencing approaches, we seek to develop new experimental and computational strategies to define altered cell states in both, cancer and immune cells. Our aim is to leverage a data driven strategy combined with single cell genomics and systems biology to address the challenges posed by heterogeneity in cancer, and to develop new strategies to overcome it, with the aim of translating laboratory-based findings into the clinic.