Quinn Lab ~ Animal Models for Cancer

Principle Investigator Dr Leonie Quinn	Research Assistant Ms Naomi Mitchell	Technical Assistant Ms Nicola Cranna

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Research Background

Aberrant proliferation leads to cancer

Our research involves developing animal models to understand the initiation and progression of cancer. We focus on genes, called oncogenes and tumour suppressor genes, which are required for tight regulation of the cell division cycle. The movement of cells through the cell cycle must be carefully monitored to ensure inappropriate proliferation does not result in tissue overgrowth, genomic instability and ultimately cancer initiation. Our lab determines how cell cycles are regulated by developmental signals in the whole animal using the excellent genetic model system Drosophila melanogaster, which has been studied for over 90 years to understand complex in vivo interactions. Developmentally regulated cell proliferationhas been well characterised in the fly, with cell cycles from embryonic, larval and adult tissues being well defined. Importantly for our studies the main elements of the cell cycle machinery have been conserved through evolution from Drosophila to mammals. This means that knowledge derived from our Drosophila studies can be applied to the complex pathways that coordinate proliferation in mammals, which are linked to cancer progression in humans. In fact the incredible conservation between the genetics of flies and mammals has led to Drosophila being described as “little people with wings”. The current understanding of the genetics of human cancer has therefore been greatly aided by studies using flies as an animal model.