The research in our lab focuses on understanding the transcriptional mechanisms that control breast cancer progression, with the aim to uncover targetable pathways to ultimately benefit patient care.

Metastatic spread of the primary tumour to distant organs is the most common cause of death from solid tumours including breast cancer, and understanding the  mechanisms controlling this process is a major focus of the lab. We are particularly interested in understanding the transcriptional control of triple negative breast cancer, which is a very aggressive subtype of breast cancer with poor treatment options.

Our lab focuses on understanding the transcriptional mechanisms controlling breast cancer biology using a range of state-of-the-art omics-technologies in multiple cellular systems ranging from cell lines to clinical samples. These technologies include genomics (e.g. ChIP-seq, RNA-seq and scRNA-seq) and proteomics (e.g. qPLEX-RIME) methods that together with functional approaches (e.g. CRISPR/Cas9) allow us to disentangle the transcriptional networks driving tumour progression.

It is now clear that additional cell types (e.g. immune cells and fat cells) within the tumour microenvironment play important roles in tumour progression. For example, many of these cell types secrete signaling molecules that affect cancer cell growth and metastasis. Our lab focuses on how these signals from the tumour microenvironment affect the transcriptional networks within the cancer cells to control cancer cell phenotype.

We are always interested in hearing from motivated students and postdocs. Please contact us at siersbaek@bmb.sdu.dk