St Vincent's Institute

• Research units

• Structural Biology
• Protein Chemistry and Metabolism
• Molecular Cardiology
• Immunology and Diabetes
• Bone Cell Biology and Disease
• Stem Cell Regulation
• Haematology and Leukaemia
• Molecular Genetics
• Cell Cycle and Cancer
• Cytoskeleton and Cancer
• Pharmacogenomics
• Invasion and Metastasis
  • Research Themes
  • Honours and PhD Projects
  • Staff
• NRL
• Genome Stability

Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) in breast cancer therapy

Project Type

PhD

Summary

Supervisors: Prof Erik Thompson, Dr Mark Waltham

Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) is over-expressed in a number of cancers, including breast cancer. ILK is involved in the prevention of anoikis (the death of cells that become detached from the extracellular matrix of their tissue of origin) and enhances cell survival in suspension. A major attribute in metastasis is the ability of cells to resist anoikis and survive in the circulation, and it has been shown that ILK inhibition can be synergistic with conventional chemotherapeutics. Our preliminary data show that an antisense oligonucleotide against ILK reduces human breast tumour growth in mice. The proposed PhD project will assess retrovirally-delivered shRNA and other means of inactivating ILK in breast cancer cell lines for metastasis studies in mice. This study will complement the development of small molecule inhibitors against ILK.