Jan Brábek

Laboratory of Cancer Cell Invasion

Migrastatics – new pillar of anti-cancer treatment.

  • Mission: To elucidate the mechanisms of cancer cell invasiveness and its plasticity.
  • Vision: To develop a new category of anti-metastatic drugs – migrastatics.

In solid tumors, invasiveness and metastasis are responsible for more than 90% of all deaths. The Laboratory of Cancer Cell Invasion focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of tumor cell invasiveness and its plasticity, in this area members of the laboratory have made several fundamental discoveries. Recently, we have defined and declared a new category of antitumor agents aimed at inhibiting invasiveness and metastasis – migrastatics. We define molecular and cellular mechanisms that are suitable for the intervention with migrastatic agents and, in cooperation with medicinal chemists, we analyze candidate substances with migrastatic effects. The introduction of migrastatics into antitumor therapy may represent a major breakthrough in the treatment of solid tumors and could be the biggest conceptual advance for antitumor therapy since the introduction of antitumor immunotherapy.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
  • Škarková A, Bizzarri M, Janoštiak R., Mašek J., Rosel D, Brábek J. Educate, not kill: treating cancer without triggering its defenses. Trend Mol Med. 2024 Apr 23:S1471-4914(24)00091-1. DOI: 10.1016/j.molmed.2024.04.003
  • Rosel D, Fernandes M, Sanz-Moreno V, Brábek J. Migrastatics: Redirecting R&D in Solid Cancer Towards Metastasis? Trends Cancer. 2019 Dec;5(12):755-756. DOI: 10.1016/j.trecan.2019.10.011
  • Gemperle J, Dibus M, Koudelková L, Rosel D, Brábek J. The interaction of p130Cas with PKN3 promotes malignant growth. Mol Oncol. 2019 Feb;13(2):264-289. DOI: 10.1002/1878-0261.12401
  • Gandalovičová A, Rosel D, Fernandes M, Veselý P, Heneberg P, Čermák V, Petruželka L, Kumar S, Sanz-Moreno V, Brábek J. Migrastatics-Anti-metastatic and Anti-invasion Drugs: Promises and Challenges. Trends Cancer. 2017 Jun;3(6):391-406. DOI: 10.1016/j.trecan.2017.04.008
  • Fernandes M, Rosel D, Brábek J. Limits to Precision Cancer Medicine. N Engl J Med. 2017 Jan 5;376(1):95-6. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1614282
SPECIALIZED EXPERTISE AND TECHNOLOGY

2D and 3D analyses of cancer cell migration and invasiveness

Advanced microscopy of structures and processes related to cell migration

Preclinical and early clinical development of anti-metastatic drugs

COLLABORATION WITH LARGE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES AND RESEARCH CENTRES

National infrastructure for biological and biomedical imaging Czech-Bioimaging

Biotechnology and Biomedicine Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Charles University BIOCEV