Marco Gerling

I am a group leader at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention, and Technology at Karolinska Institutet and an oncologist specializing in upper GI cancer at Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge, Theme Cancer, Unit for upper GI diseases. 

My research focuses on tumor invasion into parenchymal tissues, such as the liver and pancreas. When tumor cells invade healthy tissues, they interact with a variety of non-malignant cells. We study how these reciprocal interactions enable tumor cells to colonize their host organ and spread to other healthy organs through distant metastases. A key observation in our research is that tumor cells often replace the tissue of the host organ. Understanding how host organ atrophy is induced and how it facilitates tumor growth are central questions we aim to answer.

Clinically, one of our goals is to identify predictive and prognostic markers derived from a deeper understanding of tumor-normal cell interactions at these interfaces. We hope that this knowledge will ultimately guide the development of novel therapies that target cancer cell-host interactions at the tumor interface.

I am a steering board member of FoTO, Karolinska's Doctoral Programme in Tumor Biology and Oncology. FoTO is overseen by Cancer Research KI, where I am a co-director. 

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are a KI PhD student and want to connect your cancer research closer to the clinic, for example by clinical site vists!