Beleggia Lab

Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) is one of the most aggressive types of cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of 3% for patients diagnosed in advanced stage and 16% for patients diagnosed at an early stage. Despite intensive efforts, only minor advances in the pharmacological therapy of SCLC have been produced in the last decades: no targeted therapy has entered the clinic and immunotherapy only provides a marginal improvement.

Our research focus:

The focus of our research is the integration of different large-scale OMICS data, both generated within the lab and available in the literature, in order to understand the differences between cancer cells and healthy cells.

Our goals:

The aim of our research is to characterize the defining molecular and phenotypic characteristics of SCLC and investigate how they can be exploited to improve the therapy of SCLC.

Our approach:

In an effort to obtain a solid and unbiased overview of the phenotype of SCLC, that can support the translation into actionable therapeutic targets, we use large-scale genetic tools, such as whole-genome CRISPR-Cas9 screens (Fig. 1) and in vivo screens (Fig. 2) as well as data from patient samples and comprehensive online databases (Fig. 3). We then use autochthonous mice (Fig. 4) and organoid cultures (Fig.5) to test novel therapeutic strategies in the first line and second line setting.