Mario L. Suvà

My laboratory is focused on the biology of brain tumors, in particular glioblastoma and oligodendroglioma. My group is dissecting how cellular heterogeneity and plasticity contribute to tumor cell properties. We study primary human samples up to single-cell resolution and have established genetically and epigenetically relevant cellular models from patient tumors. We model how brain cancer cells exploit their plasticity to establish distinct epigenetic programs. Additionally, my laboratory will study how genetic events affecting genes involved in chromatin regulation rewire cancer cells identities to contribute to cellular transformation. Our prior experimental work has demonstrated that brain cancer cells exploit specific transcription factors, chromatin regulators and associated cellular networks to recapitulate primitive stem-like states that are responsible for key cancer cell properties, such as self-renewal and tumor-propagation. By understanding how these networks are exploited by cancer cells, and by highlighting specific chromatin factors that are required for cellular differentiation and reprogramming, we offer a complementary view to current attempts aimed at specific genetic events. Given the tremendous diversity of genetic aberrations in brain tumors, we seek to identify common programs integrated at the chromatin level that would offer novel therapeutic options in these dismal diseases.