Sarcomas in Essen – Current Standards, Challenges and Opportunities

This talk will be part of a sarcoma Retreat at IKIM, discussing possible collaborations and challenges in the field of sarcoma-research.

About Sebastian:

As a physician scientist specialized in GIST translational research I am committed to clinical care, clinical research and translational, lab-based research. As the director of the sarcoma program at the West German Tumor Center I have served as principal investigator in more than 50 clinical trials, many of which were investigator-initiated trials. I also serve as Chair of Translational Oncology at the West German Tumor Center. This center has a strong record in pre-emptive biomarker profiling that helps to steer patients to clinical trials that focus on targeted treatments. Our sarcoma center is among the largest centers in Europe with more than 300 new patients per year. GISTs comprise 20% of all patients. We have established a prospective clinical database of now more than 3500 GIST and sarcoma patients. Against this background we have set up a tissue bank in connection with the database that allows us to validate markers from preclinical studies in large patient cohorts. We also aim to regularly investigate the impact of “routine” treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiotherapy on survival of patients. My laboratory focus is understanding mechanisms of treatment resistance in GIST (gastrointestinal stromal tumors) and other sarcomas, identification of predictive markers as well as the development of novel drugs based on a strong preclinical rationale. To this end we have established a unique model pipeline using both CRISPR/Cas 9-based gene editing but also using patient-derived models.