Philipp Rathert receives Biomedical Systems Seed Funding in the Terra Incognita program of the University of Stuttgart
Dr. Philipp Rathert and Prof. Stefan Legewie were successful in securing funding from the University Stuttgart. The grant will support a project aiming to explore mechanisms controlling the choice of cytostatic vs. migration responses in cancer cells to derive a systems-level description of gene expression changes induced by TGFb mammary epithelial cells.
The research area of Dr. Rathert, group leader at IBTB, deals with the functional characterization of chromatin complexes and chromatin regulatory networks. Misregulation of these networks is a feature of many different diseases, especially cancer. To study these mechanisms, the group of Philipp Rathert combines state-of-the-art functional genetic tools (CRISPR/Cas9) with cell biology and biochemical assays.
In his research, systems biologist Prof. Legewie combines approaches from cell biology, computer science, biophysics and mathematics to analyze complex biological data sets in a holistic approach. This allows to gain insights into disease-relevant alterations, particularly in the field of cancer research.
The project is funded with 10.000€ and employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining loss-of-function genetic tolls (CRISPR) with single-cell RNA sequencing and theoretical modeling.