Flinders University cancer researcher Professor Janni Petersen will use a Flinders Foundation Health Seed Grant to help increase our understanding of a critical aspect of tumour biology.

Target of rapamycin – or TOR – driven cell proliferation in nutrient stressed conditions, is a hallmark of solid tumours.

Professor Petersen’s research will seek to define novel aspects of TOR and cell proliferation to fill a longstanding void in our understanding of how cells survive, proliferate and make cell fate decisions in reduced nutrient environments to support cancer cell propagation.

In the short term this work will benefit general understanding of biology, but in the longer term this research could help to increase understanding of cell proliferation in solid tumours and refine existing therapies to benefit patients.

Research category: Cancer

Project title: Cancer Cell proliferation: towards defining mechanisms of TOR complex 2 signalling 

Lead researcher: Professor Janni Petersen