Molecular strategies in pediatric surgery

The molecular research of our group is driven by clinical questions. Our intention is to generate knowledge that can potentially be translated back to the clinic to have an impact on future treatment.

The main focus of our research is surgical oncology. Pediatric tumor disease is still life threatening and can already occur in neonates. Surgical, oncological and interdisciplinary approaches have improved the outcome in the past. Nevertheless, there is a need for identifying underlying mechanisms of tumor development and tumor cell migration that can lead to the development of novel therapeutic approaches. The research interest of our group is focused on investigating the metastatic process and on understanding which cellular and genetic changes are involved in this process.

Neuroblastoma is a rare disease, but still it is the most common extracranial solid tumor in childhood. Rareness presents great challenges to introduce new therapeutic drugs. While investigating hypoxia-dependent modes of tumor cell migration, we are working with newly established preclinical models to mimic neuroblastoma and use rapid drug response assessment to evaluate novel therapeutics, including modern immunotherapeutic approaches amongst others.

Further research areas of our group include other fields of molecular pediatric surgical research such as congenital malformations, various aspects of neonatal and visceral diseases e.g. membrane water transport in appendicitis, influence of membrane water transport and hypoxia in the enteric nervous system, and development of congenital diseases.  

We have active collaborations with the Department Biomedicine Basel, the Department of Biomedical Engineering Basel, the University of Basel, the ETH Zürich, the University of Florence and the University Medical center Hamburg-Eppendorf amongst others.