Dr Stephen Robinson
Group Leader, Microbiota and vascular health, Quadram Institute
Starting his career studying mammary gland biology at the University of California, Dr Robinson
has since published a number of noted studies on the role of integrins during angiogenesis.
Now a Group Leader at the Quadram Institute, Dr Robinson focusses on understanding how the gut microbiome regulates vascular development and homeostasis, with particular interest in cell adhesion and angiogenesis.
Abstract:
It is increasingly clear that changes in the normal composition or diversity of the microbes that inhabit our gut (the microbiota) have the potential to drive the development and progression of cancers at sites distant to the gut, through impacts on the conditioning of our cancer fighting immune responses. Thus, restoring and/or augmenting the normal function of the intestinal microbiota, including its ability to programme immune responses, is emerging as a promising therapeutic avenue for preventing and treating cancer. However, current cancer-microbiota studies are largely focused either on cancers close to the gut or on highly immunogenic cancers known to respond well to immune-based therapies such as melanoma.
Our recent work has concentrated on investigating how changes in the gut microbiota regulate the progression of breast cancer, the most frequently diagnosed cancer-type globally. Here, I will present our work demonstrating that antibiotics, commonly used to prevent infections patients with breast cancer, perturb the microbiota and accelerate progression of the disease. However, not all is lost. I will also show our work illustrating that augmenting the function of the microbiota has the potential to slow the growth and spread of breast cancer.
7 сен 2024
