ISREC is integrated into the School of Life Sciences at EPFL, where it shares a new building (Bâtiment SV) with the Global Health Institute. Its faculty continues to investigate a spectrum of fundamental biological systems that are variously co-opted or disrupted during the development of cancer. Prominent amongst the research topics are signalling pathways that normally regulate aspects of embryogenesis and organogenesis, and mechanisms orchestrating the cell division cycle and the maintenance of genomic integrity during cell proliferation.

Increasingly, genetically engineered mouse models of human cancer are being employed to elucidate the roles of such signalling circuits and regulatory mechanisms in tumors, as well as the complex interplay of cancer cells with ostensibly normal cells in their collective “tumor microenvironment”; such heterotypic cell-cell interactions are proving instrumental for malignant progression of tumors to lethal disease. The new director – Douglas Hanahan, from the University of California at San Francisco – is developing a novel strategic plan for ISREC, involving increasing focus via new faculty recruitments on directly studying mechanisms of cancer in model systems and in human tumors, notably involving outreach to the medical oncology community in the region.

Toward that end ISREC will establish a bridge-building ‘translational’ oncology branch at the University of Lausanne’s medical campus (CHUV) intended to foster by its proximity and emphasis catalytic interactions and cooperative research with clinical cancer researchers. Both branches of ISREC will seek to expedite progress toward deeper understanding of the biology and genetics of cancer, in turn leveraging new knowledge forthcoming to develop and test innovative drug targeting strategies aimed to disrupt critical mechanisms of the disease and thereby improve the benefits of cancer therapy. The independent ISREC Foundation (http://www.isrec.ch) is focussed on supporting innovative cancer research in Lausanne and western Switzerland, in particular at the frontier of translational oncology that has promise to positively impact the future treatment of human cancer.