Grant: Operating Grant

Cancer development is constituted of series of event where normal cells suffer alterations leading to a growth advantage on normal cells and loss of function. These novel capabilities acquired during tumor formations originate from the same initial event: genetic changes affecting various cellular pathways. Our research project focus on the understanding of how the microRNA pathway, a new process discovered less than fifteen years ago, contributes to cancer formation and progression in human. We are using the worm as model system to study in details the microRNA pathway and thus how misregulation of components of this new cellular pathway can lead to cellular anomalies and cancer. We will study how the newly identified genes implicated in this cellular pathway are important for maintaining healthy cells. A better understanding of how these RNA molecules function will lead to significantly improve detection and treatment of cancers. It is clear that cancer is a very complex disease, in part because many uncharacterized regulatory molecules, such as microRNA, are playing an essential role in modulating the progression of the disease. Understanding how the new cellular pathway inferring microRNAs maintains cells healthy is important because altering microRNA expression can cause cancer, and thus correcting the inappropriate expression of these tiny RNAs can contribute to treat cancer patients. A better comprehension of the microRNA pathway and identification of novel genes implicated in this pathway is important for developing new ways to detect cancerous cells as well as developing new treatments to correct anomalies found in cancer cells.