Maréne Landström Lab

We investigate how transforming growth factor b (TGFb) and Wnt3a, which are growth factors, as well as hypoxia, activate molecular mechanisms that prostate cancer and kidney cancer cells use to become aggressive and metastatic in both in vitro and in vivo models, as well as in clinical materials from patients.

We use advanced cell, molecular and tumor biological methods, including CRISPR / Cas9, which enable specific issues with high precision. Our long-term goal is to develop new and better cancer drugs that can prevent cancer cells' ability to invade and metastasize, and to find predictive biomarkers for patients at risk of developing aggressive cancers.

Potential new cancer drug

We are now investigating a potential new cancer drug that we have developed in collaboration with the SciLifeLab Drug Discovery Development platform and which is based on our research. We collaborate with experts in drug development; Maarten de Chateau, Torbjörn Bäckström, Karin Von Wactenfeldt and others, to develop it further towards becoming a potential new cancer drug. We also collaborate with Professor Carl-Henrik Heldin Uppsala University (UU) who is a world-leading researcher in the field of TGFb and Dr Ihor Yakymovych UU.

New predictive biomarkers

To develop new predictive biomarkers for cancer patients, we collaborate with Senior Professor Anders Bergh, Professor Eva Lundin and Senior Professor Börje Ljungberg at Umeå University and Professor Anders Bjartell Lund University. Professor Thomas Wågberg and Dr Xueen Jia Department of Physics Umeå University and Professor Masood Moghaddam-Kamali and Dr Radiosa Galliani, SciLifeLab Uppsala University and Peter Frank project manager with support from SWElife.

In an investment in interdisciplinary and innovative research supported by Umeå University Medical Faculty we will do advanced studies with the help of Structural Biology, we collaborate with Professor Magnus Wolf Watz, Professor Elisabeth Sauer-Eriksson and Professor Johan Trygg all Chemical Department Umeå University to investigate a new discovery in our lab.

We also use a CRISPR /Cas9 gene edited zebrafish as a preclinical animal model to investigate the function of TRAF6 in tumor progression and we do this in collaboration with senior lecturer Jonas von Hofsten Umeå University and Dr. Kaska Koltowska Uppsala University.

We are a research group with members who have specialist knowledge in various areas of cell, tumor and molecular biology as well as knowledge of how to produce recombinant proteins and antibodies.