Cancer Institute Seminar Series - Prof Lara Barazzuol

Hosted by Prof Ricky Sharma

Radiotherapy is an essential part of the treatment of paediatric and adult primary brain tumours. Although long-term survival rates are increasing, 50 to 90% of the surviving patients develop neurological dysfunction leading to a reduced quality of life. The pathogenesis of radiation-induced neurocognitive dysfunction is not well understood and consequently no effective treatment or prevention strategy exist. My laboratory, by using a combination of methodologies, including human brain organoids and in vivo animal models, aims to reduce radiotherapy-induced neurocognitive dysfunction. To date, the link between DNA damage induced by radiotherapy and neuropathology is not fully understood. In this seminar, I will present our recent data providing evidence that radiation-induced DNA damage leads to proteome instability. This imbalance in protein homeostasis can be reduced by modulating the protein quality control capacity, either by overexpression of specific molecular chaperones or by increasing autophagy. Additionally, new data on the role of cellular senescence in this process will be presented, suggesting that targeting senescent cells may provide a novel therapeutic intervention to ameliorate radiotherapy-induced neurocognitive dysfunction.

• Prof Lara Barazzuol academic profile

A light lunch will be served after the seminar. This seminar has been sponsored in part by the Biomedical Research Centre and Cancer Research UK