Institut Suisse de Recherche Expérimentale sur le Cancer

The ISREC has, for over 40 years of its existence as an independent institute, been devoted to cancer related basic research, before being integrated as an institute into the EPFL School of Life Sciences. Its research focuses on areas including genome stability, cell proliferation and differentiation, and the role of developmental pathways in tumorigenesis and tumor progression. The ISREC Foundation continues to provide resources that are aimed at supporting projects with a potential for diagnostic or therapeutic innovation.

The ISREC is also leading house of a National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) in molecular oncology focusing on questions relating to the interaction of tumors with their microenvironment. Its goal is to support projects at the interface to the clinic.

The Aguet Group is focusing on two projects:

- Characterizing an epithelial regeneration deficit observed in mouse null mutants of Bcl9/Bcl9l, which encode presumed transcriptional co-activators of Wnt target genes. The Wnt pathway is involved in a variety of developmental processes related to morphogenesis and organogenesis. Activation of this pathway is an early step in tumorigenesis, notably in colon cancer.

- Micro-dissection of tissue from colon cancer patients to compare profiles of genes expressed in non-invasive versus invasive tumor epithelium, as well as in underlying stromal tissue. Differentially expressed genes are assessed for their role in tumor progression using mouse xenograft models and whole animal imaging, and for their potential use as diagnostic tumor markers.