Ninna Struck Rossen
International Researcher
Biotech Research & Innovation Centre BRIC, University of Copenhagen
Biography
Metastases are responsible for over 90% of cancer patient deaths. Understanding how tumours acquire the ability to invade and metastasise is critical for the identification of new targets and development of therapies against metastatic disease. Metastasis is a multistep process influenced by the immediate microenvironment, specifically cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions, and by the extended microenvironment, such as vascularity and tissue stiffness.
A major theme of our research is to take an interdisciplinary approach to investigate cancer progression. Almost all projects in the lab use systems wide approaches to help investigate questions. We believe that interdisciplinary research can advance our knowledge in ways that are not possible using single disciplinary or conventional approaches to scientific research.
We study cancer spread using a variety of approaches, and aim to investigate effects on the whole biological system rather than a few selected components. To do this, we use multiple global, unbiased methods, such as mass spectrometry-based proteomics, phosphoproteomics, kinase profiling, transcriptomics, DNA methylation and genomics in our work. We also use cross-disciplinary approaches, for example we have a project to understand the physics of cancer cells during invasion, using mechanical tweezers and advanced microscopy to measure forces.
