Cancer Genetics Lab

Professor Per Guldberg

We are interested in the genetic and epigenetic changes that drive the development of cancer, and in the hereditary genetic factors that influence the risk of cancer.

We aim at a high level of multidisciplinarity, among other things based on the Diet, Cancer and Health-biobank.

Early detection of cancer

An important means of reducing mortality from cancer is to detect the disease at a time when no symptoms have yet occurred. Great expectations exist that early diagnostics may be improved significantly by utilising sensitive, DNA-based techniques. Several studies have shown that it is possible to detect cancer in bodily fluids, including saliva, urine, blood, and faeces.

The background for DNA-based cancer diagnostics is the fact that many of the DNA changes, which accumulate in cancer cells, may arise years - or even decades - before the disease manifests itself clinically. Since the DNA changes only occur in cancer cells and not in the normal cells in the body they may be used as specific biomarkers.

Several of our projects aim at detecting cancer in bodily fluids and excretions. One of these initiatives seeks to develop simple, DNA based methods for detecting bladder cancer in a urine sample.

Another initiative deals with minimally invasive cancer diagnostics, based on examination of DNA released by the cancer cells into the blood, where it can be found as cell-free ("circulating") DNA in the serum and plasma fractions.

A special focus will be put on examining how early in the cancer development it is possible to detect the disease by screening material from the Diet, Cancer and Health-biobank, more specifically from individuals who were healthy at the time of delivering the samples, but later have been diagnosed with cancer.

The interaction between genetic and epigenetic alterations in malignant melanoma

Malignant melanoma is an aggressive type of cancer with limited possibilities of treatment, even despite recent progress.

The genome in melanoma cells contain thousands of genetic and epigenetic alterations, of which only a small fraction are of significance to the development of cancer. We are interested in identifying the important genes and elucidating their role in the cancer process. In particular, we focus on the interaction between the individual genes, and how this interaction influence the sensitivity of the cells towards different types of treatment.

The basis of these investigations is a biobank containing 110 well-characterised melanoma cell lines that can be used for genomic as well as functional studies.