Professor Menashe Bar-Eli will be giving a seminar talk as part of his visit in Finland.

His lab focuses on studying the molecular events associated with the acquisition of the melanoma malignant phenotype. They have demonstrated that the progression of human melanoma is associated with nuclear loss of AP-2α transcription factor which serves as an excellent survival marker.

They are utilizing nanoparticles encapsulated with siRNA to inhibit angiogenesis and metastasis in vivo and also demonstrated overexpression and activity of CREB in metastatic melanoma cells. Their current interests lie, among other things, in the functions of the edited miRs which differ from the WT forms as they recognize and regulate different set of genes. The proposed studies are aimed to fulfill this gap in our understanding of how certain miRNAs undergoing A-to-I editing contribute to melanoma growth and metastasis.