Rene Jackstadt is a research group leader at German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and HI-STEM gGmbH. His lab’s aim is to understand the mechanisms that control cancer progression and metastasis in order to identify novel implications for the clinics. To achieve this their research focuses on the following major topics: 1) Functional characterisation of cancer stem cells in tumor-evolution, 2) Molecular and cellular basis of cancer stem cell niches, 3) Analysis of cancer stem cells and the interaction with the tumour microenvironment as driver of therapy resistance. For this purpose, they utilize unbiased multi-omics (transcriptome, epigenome, methylome) at single cell level, functional genomics and lineage tracing approaches to analyze stem cell plasticity with complex in vivo models of metastatic colorectal cancer. His lab has a strong expertise in the use of genetically engineered mouse models, to analyze each step of molecular and cellular changes during the metastatic process longitudinally and in response to therapy. They also use primary clinical samples and patient derived organoids to better understand the most lethal stages of the disease.
Lab Website: https://www.dkfz.de/en/cancer-progression-and-metastasis