Basal cell carcinoma – Prof. Santiago Carmona (UNIGE) and Dr. François Kuonen (CHUV)

Wounding as a Driver of Cancer Progression in Basal Cell Carcinoma

This project takes a systems biology approach to see if wounding during surgical removal is a driver of basal cell carcinoma progression, and will explore its impact on novel therapeutic interventions.

Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) is the most frequent human cancer. While most BCCs can be resected surgically, a fraction of tumors progresses to an advanced invasive stage for which effective therapies are needed. We hypothesize that wounding is a key factor promoting BCC invasive progression and that understanding this mechanism will lead to improved therapies. Here we propose to i) characterize the mechanisms by which wounding drives BCC progression in terms of cancer cell plasticity, tumor microenvironment remodeling, and cell-cell interaction circuits; and ii) identify actionable molecular targets to reverse wounding-induced BCC progression and overcome therapy resistance. To this end, the multi-disciplinary research team will combine single-cell spatial transcriptomics profiling and ex vivo culture of patient-derived tumor fragments with computational methods development.

The project has the potential to reveal fundamental mechanisms linking wounding and cancer progression with relevance in cancer types beyond BCC and to improve the outcome of patients with advanced BCC where standard-of-care therapies currently fail.