Tanaka lab

Introduction

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common malignant brain tumor and very hard to be cured by current treatment options. Genetic information of GBM, such as RNA and chromatin, is important not only to reveal molecular mechanisms of cancer growth, but also find out new drug targets for future therapeutic development. However, it remains unclear how these genetic features (e.g. RNA expression, chromatin modifications) contribute to tumor progression and clinical outcome. Our long-term research vision aims to clarify molecular mechanisms of brain tumor progression and association of the genetic features with patients' phenotypes. To achieve this goal, our lab utilizes 1) 3D culture system of human brain organoids and spheroids and 2) bioinformatics technique to extract biologically-meaningful information from the complex genetic datasets.