Skip to main content

Tag: Bertolini

The Wistar Institute Announces New Caspar Wistar Fellow, Dr. Irene Bertolini

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Press Releases.

Wistar scientist joins faculty to pursue research in breast and brain cancers

PHILADELPHIA—(Feb. 13, 2024)— The Wistar Institute, an international biomedical research leader in cancer, infectious disease, immunology, and vaccine development, is pleased to announce the recruitment of Irene Bertolini, Ph.D., to the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, where she joins Wistar’s Immunology, Microenvironment, and Metastasis Program as a Caspar Wistar Fellow.

Dr. Bertolini’s promotion to Wistar faculty is made possible by the Caspar Wistar Fellows Program, which supports outstanding junior scientists in the early stages of their careers as independent investigators. As a faculty member, Dr. Bertolini now runs her own laboratory, which allows her to pursue and develop her research interests in collaboration with Wistar scientists as well as biomedical researchers throughout the world.

“I’m both excited and grateful for the opportunity to join the faculty of The Wistar Institute as a Caspar Wistar Fellow,” said Dr. Bertolini. “I know first-hand the exceptional environment and resources that Wistar has to offer new investigators like me — I can’t think of a better place to start my lab.”

Dr. Bertolini is establishing the Bertolini lab to study the relationship between breast & brain cancers and extracellular vesicles, which are packets of biological materials that cells emit and exchange. Certain extracellular vesicles from cancerous cells can contribute to conditions that can promote cancer’s growth and spread, and Dr. Bertolini’s research program aims to characterize — and, ultimately, find a way to stop — the pro-cancer mechanisms of extracellular vesicles.

“Irene has been an invaluable member of my lab for years, so it is a special pleasure for me to watch her step up to the role of Caspar Wistar Fellow,” says Dario Altieri, M.D., Wistar president and CEO, director of the Ellen and Ronald Caplan Cancer Center, and the Robert and Penny Fox Distinguished Professor. “With years of experience and a love for her work, Dr. Bertolini will do the Wistar name proud. Her work on the tumor microenvironment and extracellular vesicles is an exciting contribution to Wistar’s cancer research, and I look forward to seeing what the Bertolini lab will accomplish.”

###

The Wistar Institute, the first independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute in the United States, marshals the talents of an international team of outstanding scientists through a culture of biomedical collaboration and innovation. Wistar scientists are focused on solving some of the world’s most challenging and important problems in the field of cancer, infectious disease, and immunology. Wistar has been producing groundbreaking advances in world health for more than a century, consistent with its legacy of leadership in biomedical research and a track record of life-saving contributions in immunology and cell biology. wistar.org

For a printable version of the press release, click here.

EVs Drive Cancer. A Wistar Scientist Wants to Know How

Written by The Wistar Institute on . Posted in Featured News.

Dr. Irene Bertolini of the Altieri Lab investigates extracellular vesicles and their role in metastasis

When cancer spreads, cancer kills. Cancer’s ability to spread to other parts of the body — a process known as metastasis — makes the disease dangerous and more complicated both for the patient and the medical professionals treating the disease. Decades’ worth of cancer research has investigated the multitude of factors that can drive metastasis.

One of these factors is the presence of extracellular vesicles, or EVs, the research interest of Irene Bertolini., Ph.D., an associate staff scientist in Wistar’s Altieri Lab. Her research shows that EVs from cancer cells can contribute to the conditions that allow cancer to flourish and spread in breast cancer, the second most common cancer in women.

Vesicles are small particles created by cells that contain biological materials. When a vesicle leaves a cell, that vesicle is said to be extra-cellular. Cancerous cells emit EVs just like regular cells, but, being cancerous in origin, breast cancer EVs can carry carcinogenic properties.

Dr. Bertolini investigates the connection between breast cancer EVs and the tumor microenvironment, which can be thought of as the biological garden that cancer grows in. Like garden plants, cancers grow and spread better in certain conditions. Cancer cells work to foster those conditions, and Dr. Bertolini found that EVs produced by hypoxic (oxygen-deficient) breast cancer cells promote a variety of carcinogenic and metastatic conditions.

Using EVs from hypoxic breast cancer cells, Dr. Bertolini found that EVs increase angiogenesis, the process that forms new blood vessels. When new blood vessels form around cancer, the cancer cells use them to siphon more of the body’s nutrients, which allows cancer to grow and potentially metastasize.

Dr. Bertolini’s research also revealed that the EVs showed increased packaging of a protein called HIF1α, which has been linked to a variety of metastatic cancers. And relative to controls, tumor formation & growth in mice treated with cancer-derived EVs was significantly more rapid.

“EVs from cancerous cells basically transmit packets of potent cancer-causing material,” said Bertolini. “Where EVs move, conditions conducive to cancer follow.” Because EVs can move beyond cancerous cells and into healthy tissue, she says, they have the capacity to drive metastasis.

To that end, Dr. Bertolini plans to study the role of hypoxic breast cancer EVs in metastasizing to the liver, specifically. So far, she has found that EVs do indeed migrate to the liver, where she’s observed pro-cancer effects like increased angiogenesis and reduced counts in anti-tumor T-cells.

“Understanding why EVs help cancer spread is the first step in understanding how to stop them,” said Dr. Bertolini. “If we know what they do and how they do it, that’s half the battle.”