Caroline Dive - Overview

One hallmark of cancer is inappropriate cell survival. Pleiotropic drug resistance is associated with suppression of drug-induced apoptosis in tumours. We study how drug-induced damage signals are coupled to apoptosis how such signals activate pro-apoptotic proteins of the Bcl-2 family. Tumour micro-environmental factors modulate the threshold for drug-induced apoptosis and we are interested in how tumour hypoxia modulates Bcl-2 family proteins and drug response. Colon cancer is typically resistant to chemotherapy and we are investigating how the c-Src non-receptor tyrosine kinase, that is up-regulated in approximately 70% human colon cancers, contributes to drug-induced apoptosis in human colon cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo.