MetLab - Growth control and cancer metastasis
Roger Gomis
Institute for Research in Biomedicine
Office Tel : +34 93 4039959
Lab Tel : +34 93 4039961
e-mail : roger.gomis
irbbarcelona.org
Background
Intricate signalling networks control cell division, differentiation, movement, organization and death. Understanding how cells read and transform these signals into changes in cell behaviour is a major research focus of our group. Cancer cells disobey these signals during tumour progression and metastasis. Metastasis is the final step in 90% of all fatal solid tumours. It is therefore a grave public health problem and consequently a field of considerable pharmaceutical interest.
Research Interests
Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis
Our research centres on how growth factors, signalling pathways, and gene expression programmes control normal cell proliferation and cancer cell metastasis.
We study the ways in which cancer cells evade tumour suppressor mechanisms and engage in metastatic behaviour. We focus on a cytostatic programme involving the transcriptional activation of cell cycle inhibitors and the transcriptional repression of growth-promoting and anti-differentiation factors. Furthermore, we examine how tumour cells evade these gene responses in order to pursue metastatic behaviour. By combining in vivo selection of human metastatic cells, transcriptomic profiling and functional testing, we identify genes that selectively mediate breast metastasis to specific organs. Gene transfer techniques and RNAi-mediated gene silencing are used to functionally validate candidate genes. We are encouraged by the recent validation of these findings in clinical samples. Several of these genes encode products that are susceptible to therapeutic targeting.
More info
MetLab - Growth control and cancer metastasis
TGFbeta primes breast tumors for lung metastasis seeding through angiopoietin-like 4
Padua D, Zhang XH, Wang Q, Nadal C, Gerald WL, Gomis RR and Massagué J
Cell, 133 (1), 66-77 (2008)
Mediators of vascular remodelling co-opted for sequential steps in lung metastasis
Gupta GP, Nguyen DX, Chiang AC, Bos PD, Kim JY, Nadal C, Gomis RR, Todorova-Manova K and Massagué J
Nature, 446 (7137), 765-770 (2007)
C/EBPbeta at the core of the TGFbeta cytostatic response and its evasion in metastatic breast cancer cells
Gomis RR, Alarcon C, Nadal C, Van Poznak C and Massagué J
Cancer Cell, 10 (3), 203-214 (2006)
The logic of TGFbeta signaling
Massagué J and Gomis RR
FEBS Lett, 580 (12), 2811-2820 (2006)
A FoxO-Smad synexpression group in human keratinocytes
Gomis RR, Alarcón C, He W, Wang Q, Seoane J, Lash A and Massagué J
Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 103 (34), 12747-12752 (2006)
MetLab - Growth control and cancer metastasis
Roger Gomis
Institute for Research in Biomedicine
Office Tel : +34 93 4039959
Lab Tel : +34 93 4039961
e-mail : roger.gomisirbbarcelona.org
Managing director
Roger Gomis is the Managing director of the Metlab. He received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (2002). He was a Research Fellow at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center until spring 2006, when he took up his current position.
Research associate
Mónica Morales
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
monica.moralesirbbarcelona.org
Postdoctoral researchers
Xabier Adrian García
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
Cristina Nadal
Member of the Institut d'Investigacions Sanitàries IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic/IRB Barcelona
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
PhD students
Anna Arnal
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
anna.arnalirbbarcelona.org
Maria Tarragona
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
maria.tarragonairbbarcelona.org
Milica Pavlovic
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
milica.pavlovicirbbarcelona.org
Lab manager
Marc Guiu
tel. +34 93 403 99 61
marc.guiuirbbarcelona.org
Lab Technician
Esther Fernández Rivas
tel. + 34 93 403 99 61
esther.fernandezirbbarcelona.org
Joan Massagué, PhD
Adjunct director, IRB Barcelona
Joan Massagué is Adjunct Director of IRB Barcelona. He is also Chairman of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Professor at Weill-Cornell University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, in New York. He received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (1978) from the University of Barcelona. He was a Research Fellow at Brown University until 1982, when he joined the Faculty of Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He assumed his current positions in 1989.
tel. +34 93 403 99 62
Fax + 34 93 403 99 60
e-mail: joan.massagueirbbarcelona.org
