Solid cancers can be regarded as tissues whose normal hierarchy and turnover is perturbed due to genetic and epigenetic events, either in normal stem cells or in their more differentiated progeny. Through stepwise selection of cells with crucial defects that confer survival and growth advantage to them, this process ultimately produces invasive and metastatic cancer cells that are capable of survival, growth, and induction of angiogenesis outside their normal niche. Metastases originating from these cells are the ultimate threat to the patient. The main goal of main theme 3 is to understand human solid cancers at the molecular, mechanistic level and to apply this knowledge to improve methods for prevention, screening, diagnosis, prognosis and therapy, including studies on the potentials of stem cells in these conditions. In all of the studied diseases the research strategy is primarily based on investigation of patient cohorts and tumour samples and body fluids of the included patients. |