On 18 January 2017, Dr Elisabeth Schaffner-Reckinger, Research scientist at the University of Luxembourg, received a cheque of €250 000 from the Fondation Cancer. This grant will finance a research project whose aim is to determine which targeted therapy might be useful for breast cancer patients.

Drug administration is often required for treating cancer patients, in particular late-stage cancer patients. Since “traditional” chemotherapy has many side-effects by damaging healthy cells in addition to cancer cells, cancer research focuses on finding targeted therapies which are aimed at destroying more specifically the cancer cells. In this regard, the identification of predictive biomarkers is very important as these help to predict the response of a patient to a given targeted therapy.

At the Life Sciences Research Unit (LSRU), Dr Elisabeth Schaffner-Reckinger and her team are studying the protein L-Plastin in order to establish phosphorylated L-plastin as a predictive cancer biomarker in the future. “In cancer cells, a high expression level of L-plastin and its modification by phosphorylation are often paralleled by an aggressive behaviour of the cells, which are capable of invasion and metastasis formation. In the past, we have shown that deregulated signalling in such invasive breast cancer cells leads to L-plastin phosphorylation (Lommel et al., 2016)*. In the present study, we will determine precisely which signalling pathways that are linked to invasion and metastasis formation, also result in L-plastin phosphorylation. Our goal is to establish phosphorylated L-plastin as a tool to recommend targeted therapy blocking exactly these deregulated signalling pathways”, explains Dr Schaffner-Reckinger.

Since its creation in 1994, the Fondation Cancer is involved in cancer prevention, in cancer patient support and in funding cancer research. 

* L-plastin Ser5 phosphorylation in breast cancer cells and in vitro is mediated by RSK downstream of the ERK/MAPK pathway. Lommel MJ, Trairatphisan P, Gäbler K, Laurini C, Muller A, Kaoma T, Vallar L, Sauter T, Schaffner-Reckinger E. FASEB J. 2016 Mar;30:1218-33.

Picture: © Fondation Cancer, from left to right:

-    Dr Carlo Bock, Chairman, Fondation Cancer

-    Dr Elisabeth Schaffner-Reckinger, Research Scientist, Faculty of Science, Technology and Communication, University of Luxembourg

-    Professor Ludwig Neyses, Vice-president for Research, University of Luxembourg

-    Lucienne Thommes, Director, Fondation Cancers