Syllabus
1. Definition of cancer biology, oncogenes and tumor-suppressor genes, history of discoveries, features of cancer cells;2. Epidemiology and etiology of cancer, risk factors, prevention, principles of conventional treatment;
3. Methods of studying tumours, theories of tumour formation and progression, theories of virus-induced tumours, evolution of tumours;4. Known mechanisms of viral tumorigenesis in specific human tumorigenic viruses (HPV, EBV, HH8, HTLV, HBV, HCV, newly discovered tumorigenic viruses);
5. Strategies and perspectives for diagnostics and anti-tumour therapy (development of anti-tumour drugs, viral vectors for gene and anti-tumour therapy);6. Virotherapy - oncolytic viruses and anticancer vaccines;
Annotation
Cancer occurs as a result of many causes, and from a clinical point of view, cancer can be seen as a set of many diseases with diverse phenotypic manifestations. However, at the molecular level, the process of carcinogenesis has many common features. Historically, the study of tumorigenic viruses has made a major contribution to the elucidation of the main mechanisms of tumor transformation. To this day, tumorigenic viruses and their proteins have been used experimentally to study and unravel the complex inter-regulatory relationships in tumorigenesis. The fact that viruses are the etiological cause of up to 15% of all human cancers cannot be overlooked. In addition, viral vectors are important tools for gene and cancer therapy.
These lectures focus on a comparative analysis of key mechanisms of carcinogenesis and viral tumorigenesis. Using examples of well-studied cases of virus-induced tumors, it attempts to offer parallels for understanding the molecular, cellular, and immunological mechanisms that play a role in carcinogenesis in general and may be important for identifying therapeutic targets. The presentation also introduces modern strategies for targeted anticancer therapy, with emphasis on approaches where viruses can be used as anticancer vaccines or vectors to deliver genes, therapeutics or diagnostic agents into cancer cells. This course provides an up-to-date overview of cancer virotherapy and oncolytic viruses.
This course is designed for students interested in molecular and cell biology, virology and oncology. During the course, students will be given the opportunity to work individually with scientific literature related to cancer biology and possibly test their argumentation skills in a panel discussion on a chosen controversial topic.