UPO Book

Brief Research Description

My research program is dedicated to unravelling the interplay between metabolic reprogramming in cancer and the immune response.

1. Fatty acid oxidation & CD8+ T cell exhaustion: how tumor fat burning contributes to growth and weakens anti-tumor T cells.

2. Iron dysmetabolism and skeletal muscle: how iron dysmetabolism in muscle affects tumors and metastatic potential.

3. Lung adenocarcinoma, lysine & tryptophan: A recently awarded grant from AIRC focuses on poorly understood metabolic pathways involving lysine and tryptophan in lung cancer. These amino acids are essential not only for cancer cell proliferation, with aberrant metabolism linked to both lung cancer risk and chemoresistance, but also for the function of immune cells (Lymphocytes, Granulocytes). This project aims to delineate how their mitochondrial pathways influence lung cancer cell proliferation, aggressiveness, and immune evasion. We employ a comprehensive approach utilizing in vitro and in vivo models, complemented by biochemical, metabolic, omics, and histological analyses.

Keywords

Cancer Metabolism, Tumor Microenvironment, Immunometabolism, Mitochondrial enzymes and carriers, Metastasis 

PubMed