Kevin Bennewith's Lab

Most solid tumours contain cells that are poorly oxygenated, and these hypoxic tumour cells are refractory to a variety of cancer treatments including radiation therapy and chemotherapy. The dose of ionizing radiation required to kill a hypoxic tumour cell is nearly three-times higher than for a well-oxygenated tumour cell. Hypoxic tumour cells also exhibit low levels of proliferation, making these cells refractory to drugs that target actively cycling cells. In addition, hypoxic tumour cells are typically found 100-150um away from functional tumour blood vessels, and the delivery of chemotherapeutics to these cells can be significantly limited. Thus, many solid tumours contain a proportion of hypoxic cells that represent a major limitation to effective cancer therapy.

Not only are hypoxic cells the most difficult tumour cells to kill with conventional therapies, but hypoxia also promotes a more aggressive tumour phenotype. Hypoxia stabilizes and activates the transcriptional activity of the hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs), resulting in up-regulation of a variety of genes associated with tumour progression, angiogenesis, and metastasis. In the clinic, patients with primary tumours that contain large fractions of hypoxic cells have poor outcome, due in large part to limited treatment response and the presence of distant metastatic disease. My lab is interested in the role of tumour hypoxia (and the tumour microenvironment) in cancer therapy and in the development of tumour metastases.

Current lab members: Kevin Bennewith, Judit Banath, Nancy LePard, Jessica Jia.

Collaborators: Christina Aquino-Parsons (BC Cancer Agency), Janine Erler (Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK), Aly Karsan, Mira Keyes (BC Cancer Agency), Gerald Krystal, Marianne Sadar.

Publications: publications for Kevin Bennewith

We gratefully acknowledge funding from the Terry Fox Foundation:  http://www.terryfox.org/

We are actively seeking enthusiastic graduate students to join our lab!

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URL: http://www.bccrc.ca/mb/lab_kbennewith.html
The BC Cancer Agency Research Centre is the research arm of the BC Cancer Agency (BCCA),
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