- Department / Institute
- Institute of Medical Psychology - Department of Systems Chronobiology
- Subject area
- Chronobiology, Circadian Medicine, Proteomics, Cancer, PDAC
- Project title
- Circadian rhythmicity in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma
- Name of supervisor
- Prof. Dr. Maria Robles
- Number of open positions
- 1
- Language requirements
- Proficiency in English
- Academic requirements
- Master's Degree
- Project time plan
- 36-48 months
- Contact
- csc.international@lmu.de
Project description
The circadian clock is an endogenous and self-sustainable timing system that drives daily cycles ofalmost all physiological and behavioral functions in the body. Circadian disruption by genetic causesor misalignment with environmental cues results in diverse diseases, including cancer. However,and despite this general notion, several recent studies showed that certain cancer types such asmelanoma, glioblastoma and lymphoma still preserve tumor intrinsic clocks. Furthermore, thosecancers showed improved drug responses and reduced toxicity/adverse effects after time-of-daydesigned therapies. Additionally, time-of-day could not only be playing a role in cancer treatmentoutcomes but also in cancer detection and monitoring as it has been recently shown that breastcancer circulating tumor cells in patients and mice reach maximum numbers and highest metastaticpotential during the resting/sleep phase. Circadian functionality in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma(PDAC) development and progression has not been comprehensive explored, neither the potentialof time-of-day treatments to enhance therapeutic efficacy. PDAC is currently the third leading causeof cancer related death that poorly responses to all kind of treatments. Therefore, alternativetherapeutical approaches, such as time-of-day treatment schedules, are urgently needed toefficiently tackle PDAC. The overall objective of this project is the study of tumor intrinsiccircadian functionality in PDAC with the aim to uncover novel therapeutic strategies, basedon circadian medicine, to treat PDAC disease.