CRCL PhD student winner of the France 2022 L’Oréal-UNSECO Young Talent Award

Emma Risson about her PhD topic at CRCL:

“Most deaths related to breast cancer are due to metastasis. Metastatic relapse several years after treatment of the primary tumor is due to dormant cancer cells. However, no current treatment targets dormant cancer cells.  The bone marrow is of major interest because tumor cells disseminated in this organ can remain dormant for years and are associated with a poor prognosis in patients.

By combining in vitro and innovative 3D co-culture models of the bone marrow niche, I demonstrated that two factors regulating bone marrow balance, BMP4 and TGFB2, have a synergistic effect on the induction of dormancy of dormant cancer cells. Single-cell RNAseq also allowed me to characterize the heterogeneity of cancer cell dormancy and the existence of different dormancy depths.

Thus, my project provides a better understanding of the regulation of cancer dormancy. This will open up new direct clinical opportunities to develop treatments specifically targeting dormant cancer cells that may ultimately lead to a true curative treatment to prevent relapse.”