The future of MSC-based therapies for cancer

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) expressing therapeutic transgenes have shown great success in anti-tumour therapies but when used unarmed they can have pro-metastatic activities.

In this presentation Dr Mohr will focus on mechanisms leading to their tumour promoting characteristics and how gene-editing can make MSC-based therapies safer.

Speaker

Andrea Mohr graduated from the University of Ulm in 1997. She then moved to Hanover, undertaking a PhD in the Department of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology at the Children`s University Hospital. Her PhD was funded by a scholarship from the German Science Foundation.

From 2000 to 2005 Andrea carried out post-doctoral research at the Children`s Hospital of the University of Ulm. During that time, she started working with blood stem cells. To broaden her expertise to other types of stem cells such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), she moved to Ireland. During her time at the National University of Ireland in Galway, she was awarded a Health Research Board Ireland fellowship. There, she was also part of the team who were the first to develop an MSC-based cell therapeutic approach to deliver the cancer-cell-death causing protein TRAIL to tumours.

Since 2013 Andrea has been continuing her work on MSC-based therapies at the University of Essex. In 2019 Andrea was appointed as lecturer. In collaboration with other researchers at the University of Essex and colleagues from other academic institutions, she is focusing on cellular signalling in the tumour microenvironment and cell therapies.

How to attend

This seminar is being held in person in STEM 3.1 (STEM Centre on Square 1, Colchester campus).

If you have any queries about this seminar please email Dr Patrick Varga Weisz (patrick.varga-weisz@essex.ac.uk).