Brain tumors

Neoplasms of the central nervous system (CNS) are a heterogenous group of frequently deadly tumors with highly variable biological behavior.

Metastases from neoplasms outside the CNS are far more common than primary, intracranial neoplasms, but the yearly incidence of the latter is rising. Tumors of neuroepithelial tissue in general and gliomas in particular are the most frequent primary tumor entities and in general carry a dismal prognosis. Too little is known about how they arise, i.e., about which genomic changes bring about neoplastic transformation of cells rendering them tumorigenic. The Section for Cancer Cytogenetics therefore studies the genomes of gliomas and other brain tumors using a combination of screening techniques (karyotyping and comparative genomic hybridization; CGH). When abnormalities of particular interest are found at the chromosomal level, we may choose to examine these in more detail using molecular genetic methods. The genomic findings thus revealed are correlated with other biological and clinical parameters. The aim is to obtain both more pathogenetic understanding of the different tumor categories and to work towards a new grouping of intracranial tumors that has better prognostic information value than what is offered by current phenotypic classifications.

PhD projects

Currently we have two PhD students working on this project. Hanne-Sofie Spenning Dahlback is studying genomic changes in brain tumors, first and foremost gliomas. Cell culturing of neoplastic cells followed by G-banding and karyotyping and chromosomal and array-based CGH are the main methods used in her project “Cytogenetic and molecular cytogenetic analysis of brain tumors”. Our second PhD student is Annette Bentsen Håvik. She studies epigenetic parameters such as the methylation of the MGMT promoter as well as glioma gene expression. The latter studies aim at correlating the espression profile with the genomic characteristics of different glioma subrypes.