Molecular studies of ovary cancer

Research aimed at identifying the specific genes / proteins / pathways involved in the development and progression of ovarian carcinoma will help us gain a better understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease and may lead to new prognostic and predictive markers and development of new therapeutic concepts that will reduce morbidity of this disease.

This project is done in close collaboration with MD PhD Yun Wang and MD PhD Gunnar B Kristensen

Specific aims

• Further characterization of tumor classification of ovarian cancers based on array CGH analyses. Preliminary results indicate three different molecular subgroups, with significant difference in survival. Further studies are needed to unravel the biological features underlying these groups.
  
  
• Unify microarray results to compare the genome-wide expression profile with genomic alterations identified using CGH-array.
  
  
• Further investigate TP53’s role in ovarian carcinogenesis and progression, and its’ role as a prognostic and predictive factor among Norwegian ovarian cancer patients.
  
  
• Take advantage of the extensive clinical follow-up data of the patients in this cohort, and use both CGH data and expression data to look for deregulated pathways in the various clinical subgroups in order to identify potential predictive / prognostic markers and possible new targets for therapy.