Frontiers of Science

March 27^th at 12:00
Onsite event
in Presidentti auditorium, BioCity
Spring 2025 program

Prof. Gareth Inman, Beatson Institute for Cancer Research, UK
Deciphering squamous cancer disease progression
Host: Veli-Matti Kähäri (velkah@utu.fi)

Coffee and sandwich at 11:45, first come first served!

Six PhD researchers and early-career postdocs are welcome to have a lunch and discuss with Prof. Inman after the seminar. This is a great possibility to learn hosting skills in a friendly environment and create connections for future. Everyone is welcome to join, BioCity Turku will offer the lunch.

If you got interested, please send an email to biocityturku@bioscience.fi

The transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) superfamily comprises approximately forty related dimeric polypeptide cytokines including the bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs), the growth and differentiation factors (GDFs), activin, nodal and the TGFβs (TGFβ1, TGFβ2, TGFβ3). As well as having vital normal physiological functions during development and in adult life these factors play pivotal roles in cancer biology acting as potent tumour suppressors or tumour promoters in a context dependent manner. Work in Inman laboratory seeks to understand how, when and where TGF superfamily signalling regulates tumour progression. Dysregulation of TGF signalling is particularly prevalent in squamous cell cancers and this has led the team to begin to decipher the molecular landscape of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma and its similarities with other squamous tumour subtypes. Inman laboratory’s work focuses on understanding the driver genes, pathways and processes that drive squamous cancer disease progression with particular focus on cSCC, Head and Neck SCC and the “squamous” subtype of pancreatic cancer using in-vitro, ex-vivo and in-vivo pre-clinical models.

Selected publications

Kiourtis C, Terradas-Terradas M, Gee LM, May S, Georgakopoulou A, …, Inman GJ, Campbell A, Barry ST, Quaglia A, Morris CM, LeBeau FEN, Sansom OJ, Kirschner K, Jalan R, Oakley F, Bird TG. 2024 Hepatocellular senescence induces multi-organ senescence and dysfunction via TGFβ. Nat Cell Biol. 2024 Nov 13. doi: 10.1038/s41556-024-01543-3.

Strathearn LS, Spender LC, Schoenherr C, Mason S, Edwards R, Blyth K, Inman GJ. C1orf106 (INAVA) Is a SMAD3-Dependent TGF-β Target Gene That Promotes Clonogenicity and Correlates with Poor Prognosis in Breast Cancer. Cells. 2024 Sep 12;13(18):1530. doi: 10.3390/cells13181530.

Carrasco G, Stavrou I, Treanor-Taylor M, Beetham H, Lee M, Masalmeh R, Carreras-Soldevila A, Hardman D, Bernabeu MO, von Kriegsheim A, Inman GJ, Byron A, Brunton VG.Oncogenesis. 2024. Involvement of Kindlin-1 in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. 2024 Jul 9;13(1):24. doi: 10.1038/s41389-024-00526-1.

Bailey P, Ridgway RA, Cammareri P, …, Dimonitsas E, Stratigos AJ, Arron ST, Wang J, Blyth K, Proby CM, Harwood CA, Sansom OJ, Leigh IM, Inman GJ. 2023. Driver gene combinations dictate cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma disease continuum progression. Nat Commun. 2023 Aug 25;14(1):5211. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-40822-9.

Flanagan DJ, Amirkhah R, Vincent DF, Gunduz N, …, Lawler M, Leedham SJ, Barry ST, Inman GJ, van Rheenen J, Dunne PD, Sansom OJ. 2022. Epithelial TGFβ engages growth-factor signalling to circumvent apoptosis and drive intestinal tumourigenesis with aggressive features. Nat Commun. 2022 Dec 7;13(1):7551. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35134-3.

General information

• You can download and save all the spring 2025 FoS-seminars to your calendar from here: https://seafile.utu.fi/d/44a70f80ac1e46a9ad0a/
• Registration is not needed, participation list is circulated in the audience
• If you are a student and later wish to get a certificate of attendance from the Frontier of Science seminars, print out the seminar diary and after the seminar ask the BioCity coordinator to sign it https://seafile.utu.fi/d/44a70f80ac1e46a9ad0a/
• Please note that any audio or video recording of the seminars is strictly forbidden.
• Spring 2025 image credits to Teemu Tuominen: Close up photograph of soil bacteria Streptomyces colonies border.