The Inaugural Grace-CERN Lecture

The daunting complexity of cancer: understanding the battlefield is a step towards winning the war 

Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.

Director, Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC)

 Professor of Molecular Oncology, School of Life Sciences,

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Vice Director, Swiss Cancer Center Lausanne

Synopsis (version francaise ci-dessous)

Cancer is a disease with hundreds of variations, both in affected organs and in responses to different therapies.  Modern human cancer research is producing an avalanche of data about the distinctive genetic aberrations of its specific types, further accentuating the diversity and vast complexity of the disease. There is hope that elucidating its mechanisms will lead to more informed and more effective therapeutic strategies.  Understanding the enemy is paramount, and yet tumors arising in different organs can be so different as to defy their integration into an informed vision.  Are there common principles underlying this daunting complexity?  One hypothesis, to be discussed, is that most symptomatic forms of human cancer necessarily acquire a similar set of capabilities.  The proposition is that appreciation of these so-called hallmarks of cancer can help integrate its complexity into a clearer understanding of the battlefields of cancer. This over-arching battle space perspective may lead to new therapeutic strategies aimed at multi-targeting the hallmarks of cancer.

Le séminaire est en anglais avec interprétation simultanée en français

La complexité déconcertante du cancer:

Comprendre les règles du champ de bataille est déjà un pas vers la victoire

Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.

Directeur Centre Suisse de la Recherche Experimentale sur le cancer (ISREC)

Professeur en oncologie moléculaire, Ecole des Sciences du Vivant,

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Vice Directeur du Centre Suisse sur le Cancer, Lausanne

 Le cancer est une maladie qui se décline en centaines de variations possibles, touchant différents organes et répondant très différemment aux différentes formes de traitement. La recherche moderne sur le cancer de l´homme produit quantités de nouvelles données sur ses altérations génétiques, soulignant d'avantage encore sa diversité et sa complexité. L'élucidation de ces mécanismes permettent d'espérer que soient développées de nouvelles stratégies thérapeutiques plus efficaces. Comprendre l'ennemi devient primordial, cependant les tumeurs se développant dans les différents organes peuvent être si différentes qu'elles mettent en question l'idée même de leur intégration en une vision globale. Y a-t-il des principes communs sous-jacents à cette complexité déconcertante ? Une hypothàse, à discuter ici, est que la plupart des formes du cancer chez l'homme doit nécessairement acquérir un ensemble donné d'aptitudes pour présenter les symptômes de la maladie. Notre proposition est que la définition de ces capacités distinctives du cancer peuvent nous aider à appréhender la complexité des différentes formes de cancers et leurs mécanismes génétiques pour une meilleure compréhension du champ de bataille. La définition de ce champ de bataille global peut conduire à de nouvelles stratégies thérapeutiques ayant pour but de cibler plusieurs des capacités distinctives du cancer.

 

 

 

 

Starts
Ends
Europe/Zurich
CERN
80-1-001
Globe of Science and Innovation
Scientific Biography: Douglas Hanahan Douglas Hanahan, PhD, is Director of the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (Suisse de Recherche Expérimentale sur le Cancer, ISREC), Professor of Molecular Oncology in the School of Life Sciences at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL), and Vice-Director of the new multi-institutional Swiss Cancer Center Lausanne. Hanahan received a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1976, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University in 1983, where he was elected to the prestigious position of Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows. He worked at the legendary Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York first as a graduate student and then as a faculty member. Subsequently he spent twenty years as a Professor in the preeminent University of California at San Francisco before moving to EPFL in 2009. Hanahan’s accomplishments have been recognized by his election to several honorific societies: he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2007), a member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies (2008), a member of the US National Academy of Science (2009), and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (2010). Hanahan received an honorary degree from the University of Dundee (Scotland) in 2011, and was further honored by the exceptional invitation to present a lecture to the public in the University’s “Greatest Minds” series. In 2012, Hanahan received the annual award for distinguished cancer research from the Fondazione San Salvatore, in Lugano, Switzerland. In 2014, Hanahan was elected as a fellow of the Academy of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and honored with the AACR’s Lifetime Achievement Award.