Susanne Schlisio

Susanne Schlisio

Senior Lecturer | Docent
Telephone: +46852487117
Visiting address: BioClincium, Visionsgatan 4, våning 6, 17164 Solna
Postal address: K7 Onkologi-Patologi, K7 Forskning Schlisio, 171 77 Stockholm

About me

  • PhD, Associate Professor Susanne Schlisio
    Susanne Schlisio is a cancer biologist with extensive experience in sympathoadrenal nervous system malignancies, neuronal development and cancer mouse models. She completed her PhD studies at Duke University Medical School in 2002 in cancer research and her postdoctoral research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute at the Harvard Medical School in 2008. As a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. William G. Kaelin, Jr. she was part of the team discovering how cells adapt to changes in oxygen availability and how this process is directly linked to cancer-discoveries that now have been recognized with award of the Nobel Prize to Dr. Kaelin. In 2008, she was a recipient of an internationally competitive member position at the Ludwig Cancer Institute Stockholm to start her own research group. Since 2017, she is faculty at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm. Her current and future work includes the identification of novel oxygen-sensing pathways that are implicated in malignant transformation, with focus on cancer arising from the sympathoadrenal lineage, such as neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma. Her laboratory developed a new analytic and experimental approach based on single nuclei transcriptomics and mass spectrometry to explore intra-tumor heterogeneity and plasticity in childhood neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma. Her lab generated novel tumor mouse model systems and includes human tumors to perform comparative differentiation trajectory analysis, to make predictions and, finally, to perform preliminary validations of envisioned tumor differentiation strategies.

    More information about my research can be found at Susanne Schlisio lab:
    https://ki.se/en/onkpat/schlisio-lab

    2019 H2020 European Research Commission ERC-2019-SyG
    2017 Senior Research Position from the Swedish Cancer Foundation.
    2008 Recipient of an internationally competitive member position at the Ludwig Cancer Institute
    2008 Friends for Life Dana Farber Award, USA
    2008 Melanoma Research Award MRF, USA
    2007 Friends of Dana Farber Award, USA
    2007 Charles H. Hood Child Health Research Award, USA
    2006 VHL Family Alliance Research Award, USA
    2006 Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship USA
    2002: PhD, Duke University Medical School, Durham, N.C., USA, 2002
    1999: MSc, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany

Research

  • *Oxygen Sensing and Cancer*
    How do we cope with oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) in health and disease?

    Oxygen sensors enable the cell to adapt to low-oxygen environments and drive metabolic adaptation, but are also critical for normal development and apoptosis. Hypoxia is a hallmark of cardiovascular disease and cancer, which are the leading causes of death worldwide. Our research concerns the mechanisms of how alterations in oxygen-sensing pathways can lead to cancer. We are interested how we adapt to hypoxia at the cellular level, and using that knowledge to combat diseases, such as cancer. Oxygen sensing is mediated partly via prolyl hydroxylases that require
    molecular oxygen for enzymatic activity. Our work focuses on the identification of novel oxygen-sensing pathways that are implicated in malignant transformation, with focus on cancer arising from the sympathoadrenal lineage, such as neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma.

    *Exploring drivers of intratumor heterogeneity and phenotypic plasticity*
    Why are advanced cancers eventually acquiring resistance to targeted therapies and relapse?

    Acquired resistance is the direct consequence of pre-existing intratumor heterogeneity. Systematic characterization of dynamic properties of intratumor heterogeneity and phenotypic plasticity can guide treatment strategies and improve clinical outcome for cancer patients. Currently, our laboratory developed a new analytic and experimental approach based on single nuclei transcriptomics and mass spectrometry to explore intra-tumor heterogeneity and plasticity in childhood neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma. We generated novel tumor mouse model systems and include human tumors to perform comparative differentiation trajectory analysis, to make predictions and, finally, to perform preliminary validations of
    envisioned tumor differentiation strategies. We are exploring embryonic cell state transitions during sympatho-adrenal development that enables us to identify non-mutational drivers of intratumor heterogeneity.

    *Exploring clinical heterogeneity and outcome in high-risk childhood neuroblastoma*

    Childhood neuroblastoma has a remarkable variability in outcome. Age at diagnosis is one of the most important prognostic factors, with children less than 1 year old having favorable outcomes. We study single-cell and single-nuclei transcriptomes of neuroblastoma with
    different clinical risk groups and stages, including healthy adrenal gland. We compare tumor cell populations with embryonic mouse sympatho-adrenal derivatives, and post-natal human adrenal gland. We provide evidence that low and high-risk neuroblastoma have different cell identities, representing two disease entities. Low-risk neuroblastoma presents a transcriptome that resembles sympatho- and chromaffin cells, whereas malignant cells enriched in high-risk neuroblastoma resembles a subtype of TRKB+ cholinergic progenitor population identified in human post-natal gland. Analyses of these populations reveal different gene expression programs for worst and better survival in correlation with age at diagnosis. Our findings reveal two cellular identities and a composition of human neuroblastoma tumors reflecting clinical heterogeneity and outcome.

    More information about my research can be found at: Susanne Schlisio lab:
    https://ki.se/en/onkpat/schlisio-lab

    Our methods:


    Imaging
    * RNA scope, IHC,
    * Spatial techniques: In Situ Sequencing (ISS) in collaboration with Mats Nilson lab at Scilife


    Bioinformatics
    * Single nuclei RNAseq
    * RNA velocity to explore trajectory analysis during tumor progression
    * Proteomics analyses by nanoLC-MS/MS



    Tumor mouse models
    * Generating novel neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma mouse models
    * Lineage tracing



    Biochemistry
    * Hydroxylation assays
    * Intro translation
    * S35 capture pulldowns
    * Seahorse to study mitochondrial metabolism
    * shRNA and CRISPR/Cas9 lentiviral transduction

    Single Cell Resources:
    Explore deep-sequence full-length coverage RNA from single cell and nuclei of the post-natal human gland, of postnatal mouse adrenal gland and
    of human neuroblastoma tumors across different risk groups:
    http://oxygen.mtc.ki.se/nc_nb_2021.html

    Single Cell Resources
    https://oxygen.mtc.ki.se/nc_nb_2021.html

    More information about my research can be found at: Susanne Schlisio lab:
    https://ki.se/en/onkpat/schlisio-lab

Teaching

Articles

All other publications

Grants

Employments

  • Senior Lecturer, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, 2023-
  • Principal Researcher, Department of Oncology-Pathology, Karolinska Institutet, 2023-2023

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, Karolinska Institutet, 2020

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