WCCS/EADO 2016 | What are the next steps for the research on fibroblasts, and what is the clinical potential?

Beate Lichtenberger, PhD of the Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria, provides an insight into the new research that is taking place at her institution on fibroblasts in the context of skin cancer. She explains the research is being undertaken to find out where the cancer-associated fibroblasts originate from, and whether they arise from the result of transdifferentiation or come from the cells that reside in normal skin. Researchers would also quite like to dissect the crosstalk between the mutated epidermal cells and the fibroblasts. Cancer cells are usually mutated, and the cells usually acquire resistance even to therapies that are beneficial in the beginning; therefore, since fibroblasts are rarely mutated, they may prove to be a good target for cancer therapy.
Recorded at the 2016 World Congress on Cancers of the Skin (WCCS) and the Congress of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology (EADO) in Vienna, Austria.