In our human body, each organ is closely connected and regulated in a systematic way. Understanding the multi-layered changes that occur in the patient's body with disease occurrence is necessary to fundamentally understand the nature of systemic diseases like cancer and to establish new treatment strategies. The purpose of our team is to understand the physiological changes in patients at diverse levels (cells, tissues, and systems) during disease development especially focusing on cancer, and to propose new treatment strategies that have never been tried before.
Cancer Cachexia: The Hidden Curplit Behind Wasting
Cancer cachexia is a syndrome of unintentional body weight loss in patients with advanced-stage cancer and accounts for ~20% of cancer-related deaths. It is a systemic wasting condition caused by cancer, mainly occurring in the patient`s muscles and fats. Our team`s aim is to develop novel treatments for cancer cachexia by identifying the characteristics of cachexia-inducing cancer cells and elucidating alterations caused by it in the tumor microenvironment, organ-to-organ interactions, and the patient`s microbiome.
Tumor Dormancy: Wake It Up? or Let It Keep Sleeping?Â
The primary causes of cancer patient deaths are recurrent cancer after surgery and/or chemotherapy and the formation of distant metastasis. These processes can be regulated through multilayered mechanisms, from cancer cells` cellular change to alterations in the immune system, microbiome, and patients' mutation status. By using newly developed techniques to isolate dormant cancer cells, our lab aims to analyze the processes of the entry and awakening of tumor dormancy as well as metastasis in both in vitro and in vivo models.