Eventos
O venres 6 de xuño de 2025, Dr. Silvia Penuela (PhD. Associate Professor and Associate Chair-Research Deparment of Anatomy and Cell Biology. Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry. University of Western Ontario. London, Ontario. Canada) ofrecerá o seminario “Pannexin channel isoforms in cancer signalling" dentro do ciclo CINBIO Seminar Programme.
Será ás 11:00 horas na Sala de Seminarios de Torre CACTI.
ABSTRACT:
Our team in the Penuela Lab has continued our work in the pannexin field by employing our expertise in molecular and cellular biology of pannexin channels (PANX1, PANX2 and PANX3) and their role in paracrine signalling and cell communication. We have discovered that these ion and metabolite channels not only act through their respective pannexin channel functions in purinergic and paracrine signaling, but also play a role in cell signaling through their interactions with key regulators. For example, we found that PANX1 directly binds beta-catenin and is a key element of the Wnt and Hippo signalling pathways, regulating cancer cell growth and metabolism in melanoma and other skin cancers. We have seen a general upregulation of PANX1 in most cancer types with important roles in tumorigenesis and migration, while inhibition of these channels reverts cancer cells to more normal phenotypes and reduces tumour growth and metastasis.
SHORT BIO:
Dr. Penuela is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair – Research in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. She is cross-appointed to the Department of Oncology -Division of Experimental Oncology. Silvia is originally from Bogota, Colombia, where she did her B.Sc. in Microbiology at the University of Los Andes. She then moved to the United States and did her Ph.D. in Plant Pathology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and a first postdoc at the USRA-ARS laboratories in St. Paul, Minnesota. She then moved to Canada and did a second postdoc at the University of Western Ontario characterizing the novel family of pannexin proteins and their function in health and disease. In July 2014, she started a tenure-track faculty position at Western University and was promoted with tenure in 2020. Her research team is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Project grants, NSERC Discovery Grant, Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), and the Brain Tumour foundation. She serves in several grant panels including CIHR (member of the college of reviewers and scientific officer). Her research program has continued the seminal work done in pannexins in normal tissues including skin, adipose tissue, cartilage and bone, as well as the role of pannexins in malignant transformation of different cancers such as melanoma and glioblastoma.
