COMUNICATO STAMPA
Al Centro Caprense Ignazio Cerio: si è svolto il 21 settembre il Convegno “Cancer mechanisms and therapeutic frontiers”. Presenti i nomi più illustri della medicina internazionale riuniti contro la lotta al cancro
“La ricerca è fondamentale per trovare nuovi meccanismi e quindi nuovi possibili bersagli terapeutici nella lotta alle neoplasie. Da qui l’idea di raggruppare e mettere a confronto alcuni dei massimi esperti mondiali sul tema, con l’obiettivo di stimolare la discussione su alcuni degli approcci di intervento più avanzati in questo delicatissimosettore”, così Gerry Melino, Accademico dei Lincei, Ordinario di Biochimica presso l’Università di Roma Tor Vergata, nonché organizzatore del convegno che si è tenuto il 21 settembre presso il Centro Cerio di Capri, intitolato “Cancer mechanisms and therapeutic frontiers”. Il convegno, che ha riunito alcuni dei nomi più illustri della lotta al cancro a livello mondiale – come il premio Nobel (2004 per la Chimica) Aaron Ciechanover dell’Israel Institute of Technology – si è concentrato su alcune linee di ricerca e di intervento terapeutico contro le neoplasie che stanno dando particolari speranze, per questo che rimane uno dei maggiori problemi sanitari al mondo. “Abbiamo scelto tre temi – spiega Melino – Il primo è quello della degradazione delle proteine presentato dal dott. Ciechanover. Il secondo tema affrontato è quello della morte cellulare programmata: le cellule sono in certi casi ‘programmate’ per distruggersi, è il fenomeno cosiddetto della apoptosi. Le cellule tumorali tendono ad essere resistenti alla apoptosi e quindi a non morire. Capire come le cellule muoiono, quali sono le proteine e i meccanismi coinvolti sta aprendo nuove e rilevanti possibilità di terapie. Oltretutto, proprio di recente sono state descritte altre forme di morte cellulari al di là dell’apoptosi, quali necroptosi o ferroptosi, che a loro volta vanno comprese e possono rappresentare la base per nuovi strumenti di intervento contro i tumori. Da ultimo, il tema delle immunoterapie, discusse dal professor Tak Mak, (Università di Toronto, Canada) che per primo identificò il recettore dei linfociti T. Il tema dei potenziali vaccini antitumorali, come la terapia del blocco degli immunocheckpoint, ha già dimostrato incredibile efficacia in diversi tumori ed ha portato al premio Nobel per la Fisiologia o Medicina 2018, Jim Allison nel 2018, anche lui presente al convegno Cerio”.
TAK MAK
Tak Mak’s research interests centers on immune recognition and regulation as well as cell survival and cell death in normal and malignant cells. He was the leading scientist of the group that first cloned the genes of the human T cell antigen receptor. Dr. Mak’s more recent work includes leading the creation of a series of genetically altered mice that have proved critical to unraveling intracellular programs governing the development and function of the immune system (e.g. CTLA-4), and the dissection of signal transduction cascades in various cell survival and apoptotic pathways (e.g. caspases, apaf1, cyto c). He also published numerous scientific papers on cancer biology, including the initial discovery of the functions of PTEN and Chk2, as well as that the breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are related to DNA repair. More recently, he turned to explore cancer
metabolism and have determined that IDH mutations are involved in cancerogenesis and alterations of epigenetics. To complement Dr. Mak’s laboratory’s excellence in basic research, he has initiated an anticancer drug discovery program based on his extensive industrial and commercialization experience. Thus, his group has significant experience in recognizing promising drug targets performing translational and preclinical studies and assisting with early-stage clinical testing. In addition to his academic credentials, Dr. Mak has extensive industrial and commercialization experience. Numerous highly respected researchers and scientists in both academia and industry from around the world have trained in his laboratory.
GERRY MELINO
Gerry Melino, member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Rome “Tor Vergata” and Head of the Biochemistry Unit of the same University. For 20 years directed a programme at the Medical Research Council and Leicester and then in Cambridge, UK. He is Founder & Editor of the journals Cell Death and Differentiation, Cell Death and Disease and Cell Death Discovery, and he is member of several other Editorial Boards and Scientific Advisor Committees. His scientific interest, with over 600 papers, focuses on programmed cell death in epidermal and neural models, in particular on the p53 family – p63 and p73.
JAMES P. ALLISON
James Patrick Allison is Regental Professor and Chair of the Department of Immunology, the Olga Keith Wiess Distinguished University Chair for Cancer Research, Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Research, and the Executive Director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center. His discoveries have led to immune checkpoint blockade therapy for cancers. He has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T-cell development and activation, and on the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy (CTLA-4). Awards: Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, 2014; Lasker-Debakey Clinical Medical Research, 2015; in 2018, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Tasuku Honjo “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation”.
AARON CIECHANOVER
Aaron Ciechanover is Distinguished Research Professor in the Faculty of medicine at the Technion, Israel. As a graduate student with Avram Hershko and Irwin A. Rose from the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, they discovered that covalent attachment of ubiquitin to a target protein signals it for degradation. They deciphered the mechanism of conjugation, described the general proteolytic functions of the system, and proposed a model according to which this modification serves as a recognition signal for a specific downstream protease. Awards: 2000 Albert Lasker Award, the 2002 EMET Prize, 2003 Israel Prize, and 2004 Nobel Prize (Chemistry; shared with Drs. Hershko and Rose).
