Mapping Metastasis with Sakari Vanharanta, MD, PhD
Finding Genius Podcast
Richard Jacobs
4.4 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 August 2020
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Dr. Sakari Vanharanta is a principal investigator at MRC Cancer Unit, University of Cambridge, where he studies cancer metastasis.
In this episode, you will learn:
- What the seed and soil hypothesis is in the study of cancer, and why it could shed light on how cancers are able to grow and develop in various parts of the body
- What types of heritable epigenetic mechanisms may be at play in the development of cancer
- What type of evidence there is for the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation on cancer metastasis
How does cancer spread to other parts of the body? What's required in order for the cells of a primary tumor to travel to and grow in another location? These are just a couple of the questions answered by Dr. Vanharanta in today's podcast.
His research is focused on understanding how genes and mutations in cancer function, and how mutations in cancer interact with other cellular pathways to drive metastasis. This is important, because metastasis is the cause of the vast majority of cancer-related deaths. If more information can be gathered, prevention of cancer or a cancer treatment might be possible.
Metastases are still poorly understood, but there is a significant drive to better understand it, since doing so has implications for personalized and targeted cancer therapeutics. Dr. Vanharanta believes that further research on the role of genomics in cancer could lead to findings which have a huge impact in the field of cancer research, and he shares his insight on the matter.
Press play to hear the full conversation.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Forget frequently asked questions common sense common knowledge or Google how about advice from a real genius |
| 0:06.8 | 95% of people in any profession are good enough to be qualified and licensed 5% go and beyond. They become very good at what they do, but only 0.1% are real Jesus. |
| 0:18.3 | Richard Jacobs has made it his life's mission to find them for you. He hunts down and interviews geniuses in every field, sleep science, cancer, stem cells, |
| 0:27.2 | ketogenic diets, and more. |
| 0:28.8 | Here come the geniuses. |
| 0:30.4 | This is the Finding Genius Podcast. |
| 0:33.0 | That are Richard Jacobs. |
| 0:35.0 | Hello, this is Richard Jacobs, the Executive Director of the Findingius Foundation and host of the Fine |
| 0:43.9 | Genius Podcast. I guess today is Sakri Baranta. He's a principal investigator. He's |
| 0:49.7 | studying cancer and in particular metastas and the key molecular drivers that cause it and |
| 0:57.0 | regulated etc. So Secretary, thank you for coming. Thank you for having me. |
| 1:01.8 | Yeah, if you would in your own words tell me what got you into studying this and what you're working on. |
| 1:08.0 | Well, I studied medicine as an undergrad and then I ended up getting interested in genetics and then there's a really |
| 1:16.8 | great cancer genetics laboratory in Helsinki where I grew up and went to medical |
| 1:20.8 | school Laudy Altenance Group and so I started working there as a summer student initially and then ended up staying for longer to do a PhD in cancer genetics. |
| 1:30.0 | And that of course is a really exciting field but I kind of had a feeling that genetics can take you really far in understanding how cancer works, but then there's a certain limit at which point the genetics doesn't really help you anymore. |
| 1:46.9 | So I was interested in trying to understand how the genes and mutations in cancer function and that's how I ended up doing the work I do now, which is more kind of experimental. |
| 1:58.0 | So are you trying to figure out what causes metastasis initially or like what are you looking at in particular around it? |
| 2:06.7 | Yes in principle yes so we are trying to understand how mutations can say mutations interact with other |
| 2:17.0 | several pathways to drive metastases |
| 2:20.0 | and this is very important because of course metastases are the cause of the vast majority of cancer related deaths. |
| 2:30.0 | And so to understand how to how cancer cells acquire the capability to spread around the body and colonize different issues is very important, |
... |
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