Nearly half of all cancer patients suffer from weight loss due to the wasting of adipose and skeletal muscle tissues, or cachexia. This progressive illness limits cancer therapy and decreases survival as well as impairs quality of life. Currently, there is no effective therapy to block cancer-associated wasting.
Kır laboratory utilizes molecular biology techniques, state-of-the-art transcriptomic approaches, primary cell cultures, mouse tumor models and clinical samples to dissect molecular mechanisms behind tumor signaling to adipose and skeletal muscle tissues and identify novel molecular targets for an anti-cachexia therapy.
Current projects focus on the roles of tumor-derived factors in muscle atrophy and the importance of their signaling mechanisms in the etiology of cancer cachexia with the overarching goal of studying therapeutic blockade of these pathways, which may prevent wasting in cancer patients.