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Cancer Cachexia

Cancer cachexia is a wasting syndrome that is characterized by systemic metabolic alterations that result in degradation of fat and muscle tissue. It affects up to 80% of cancer patients, lowers the quality of life and treatment prospects and is in approximately 25% of cancer cases the direct cause of patient death. Cancer cachexia itself is currently not treatable. We use Drosophila melanogaster as an genetically modifiable model organism that allows the investigation of this systemic disease in a whole organism, within a short timeframe and with minimal ethical concerns. Using our recently described tumor model we study how tumor cells cross-talk with otherwise healthy host tissue to induce metabolic alterations and tissue wasting.

Read more about our tumor model here: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.02.28.640798