Project Details
Description
Radiotherapy is currently used in more than 60% of cancer treatments. However, its efficacy is often limited by cancer cell intrinsic resistance as well as by toxicity in surrounding healthy tissues. Hadontherapy, which uses particles instead of photons as in conventional radiotherapy, allows to overcome these limitations. Moreover, a tumor is not only composed of cancer cells but it also contains new blood vessels and numerous immune cells including TAMs (tumor associated macrophages) which modulate the response of cancer cells to various therapies, including radiotherapy. The objective of this work is to better understand the reciprocal dialogue between cancer cells on one hand and endothelial cells or TAM on the other hand, which influences the tumor response to radiotherapy. These studies will be performed comparatively for classical radiotherapy and for hadrontherapy, both in vitro using co-cultures but also in vivo in murine tumor models. They will aim at identifying the entities (proteins, lipids and/or exosomes) that are involved in the dialog between these different cell types and that may be responsible for radioresistance. These molecular processes may be targeted in the future for increasing the radiosensitivity of
tumors regarded as a complex structure rather than a “simple” mass of cancer cells.
tumors regarded as a complex structure rather than a “simple” mass of cancer cells.
Status | Finished |
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Effective start/end date | 1/12/13 → 30/05/18 |
Attachment to an Research Institute in UNAMUR
- NARILIS
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