#IDIBELLfellows: Iswarya Sreeram / Ana Cantos Cortes

From Senescence to cell death: exploring novel therapeutic approaches in Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM)
Iswarya Sreeram – Preclinical and experimental research in thoracic tumors (PreTT) Group

Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma (MPM) is an aggressive neoplasm caused by exposure to asbestos fibres. The standard treatment consists of chemotherapy but few patients achieve long-term survival and novel therapeutic approaches are needed. This talk would be about the effect of CDK4/6 inhibitor, palbociclib: It causes cell cycle arrest and senescent-like phenotype in MPM cells but it does not kill them. We explored the combination of senolytics and palbociclib to observe possible effects in cell death. We will present these data and other combination approaches that may contribute to eradicate MPM cells.

New experimental approaches to analyze the role of TGF-β in liver tumor microenvironment
Ana Cantos Cortes – TGF-beta & Cancer Group

Liver cancer has increased in incidence in recent years, shows a high mortality rate and moderate response to treatment. Transforming Growth Factor-beta (TGF-β) is emerging as a potential therapeutic target in cancer, particularly combined with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies. However, it is a pleiotropic cytokine that could be exerting different functions. Moreover, there are no evidence reflecting the dependency of TGF-β in stroma cells during cancer associated fibroblasts activation or immunosuppression in liver cancers. We aim to explore the response to TGF-β of HCC tumor cells, the impact of TGF-β pathway on the stroma cells, and the potential role of TGF-β on the cell interactome tumor-stroma.