2023

Non-melanoma skin cancer is by far the most common type of cancer worldwide. Sabine Werner and her team at ETH Zurich have discovered a new tumour-suppressing protein called NRF3 in the skin. In the cancer cells of patients with non-melanoma skin cancer, they found significantly reduced levels of this protein, which increased the malignancy of the cells and promoted the invasive growth of the tumours. Furthermore, they demonstrated that NRF3 exerts its tumour-suppressing effect by interacting with a protein called HSPA5. Inhibiting HSPA5 is therefore a promising option for the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancer. The Wilhelm Sander Foundation has funded the project with €418,000.

As part of a research project funded with €151,000 by the Wilhelm Sander Foundation at the José Carreras Centre of the Department of Internal Medicine I at Saarland University Hospital (UKS), have succeeded in identifying a possible further infectious trigger for Hodgkin’s lymphoma: the bacterium Rothia mucilaginosa. Furthermore, in the case of mantle cell lymphoma, it has been shown that reactivity of lymphoma B-cell receptors against a specific endogenous protein (LRPAP1) is associated with a better prognosis. These findings could also be used in the future to develop new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of lymph node cancer.

Curing acute myeloid leukaemia remains a challenge. This is particularly true of rare, highly aggressive forms such as erythroleukaemia. To better understand the biology of this rare form of leukaemia, researchers led by Prof. Jürg Schwaller at the UKBB investigated a specific genetic alteration that leads to the formation of unique fusion genes and proteins found exclusively in the paediatric form of erythroleukaemia. They have shown that a specific fusion blocks the maturation of blood cells and, together with another mutation, triggers erythroleukaemia. The Wilhelm Sander Foundation provided €170,000 in funding. Published in the journal *Blood*.