AG Chatain
Recent advances in the development of novel therapeutic strategies of Philadelphia chromosome-positive (Ph+) and Philadelphia chromosome-negative (Ph-) myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs) are aiming at improving patient outcomes and eliminating the malignant clone.
However, side effects, limited efficacy, resistance and progression into secondary acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and fibrotic transformation are still severe problems in patient treatment.
The research group of Dr. rer. nat. Nicolas Chatain is especially interested in identifying novel targets to prevent progression of MPN and AML, and to ablate the malignant clone, carrying so-called driver mutations. The oncogenes BCR-ABL (Ph+), JAK2V617F, CALR frameshift mutations and MPL W515X (all three Ph-) confer specific expression profiles and cellular capabilities, altering the bone marrow niche and associated cells, again supporting the malignant clone.
Our goal is to explore the interaction of malignant hematopoietic and mesenchymal cells by understanding aberrant signaling pathways and expression profiles. We focus on innovative cell models, such as patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), techniques (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9 and scRNAseq) and in vivo strategies to eventually improve patient’s outcome in the future.
Our projects are funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) and the Exploratory Research Space (ERS) of the RWTH Aachen University.
Team
Group Leader
Dr. rer. nat. Nicolas Chatain
Tel.: 0241 80 80986
nchatainukaachende
Team Member
Siddharth Gupta, M.Sc. (PhD-Doktorand)
sguptaukaachende
