KRAS in the Primary Cilium – A Tiny Site for a Big Role of RAS in Differentiation

Seminar details

Daniel Abankwa, PhD, is Full Professor for Cancer Cell Biology at the University of Luxembourg. He studied chemistry and biology in Göttingen (Germany) and completed his PhD in molecular neurobiology in Düsseldorf (Germany). In 2002, he moved as a postdoc to the EPFL in Switzerland, before he started working on the oncogene RAS with Prof. John Hancock at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience of the University of Queensland (Australia) in 2006. He then became junior group leader with Prof. Kirill Alexandrov at the same institute in 2008, before starting as independent group leader and adjunct professor at the Turku Centre for Biotechnology/ Turku Bioscience Centre (Finland) in 2010.

The overarching research goal of the Abankwa lab is to develop novel drug targeting strategies against the RAS pathway in cancer and developmental diseases called RASopathies. Their research focuses on understanding how RAS drives stemness and differentiation, identifying novel RAS drug targets and mechanisms, and developing proof-of-concept drugs.
His group employs quantitative fluorescence imaging, flow cytometry, biochemical and cellular assay development and molecular cell biology. They developed several FRET- and BRET-biosensors for the detection of functional membrane anchorage of small GTPases and Src-family proteins, as well as for various interactions in the Ras pathway. Recently, several drug development projects were launched against RAS surrogate targets employing in silico screening, classical small molecules, protein-protein interface targeting small molecules and peptides/ peptidomomimetics.

Hosted by Michael Rudnicki
 

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