Carl von Rokitansky Prize awarded to Tanja Limberger
Tanja Limberger was awarded this year’s Carl von Rokitansky prize for her work on KMT2C mutations and their contribution to prostate cancer metastasis. The study, which was published in the prestigious journal “Molecular Cancer”, was carried out at the Department of Pathology of the Medical University of Vienna under the supervision of Lukas Kenner, as part of a project conducted by the Center for Biomarker Research in Medicine (CBmed GmbH), a COMET K1 centre funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG).
As lead author of the study “KMT2C methyltransferase domain regulated INK4A expression suppresses prostate cancer metastasis” published in the high ranking journal “Molecular Cancer” on 30th of March 2022 Tanja Limberger has won the Carl von Rokitansky prize, worth €5.000, which is sponsored by Roche and awarded by the Austrian Society for Clinical Pathology and Molecular Pathology for outstanding achievements in the field of pathology.
The study focused on the role of the epigenetic regulator KMT2C in prostate cancer. Using a transgenic mouse model of prostate cancer, it was shown that cancer-typical mutations of KMT2C can activate the highly proliferative MYC signalling pathway and inhibit the expression of the important tumour suppressor p16INK4A. As a result, KMT2C-mutated tumours show increased rates of cell division and a higher probability of metastatic dissemination. An analysis of publicly available data of a cohort of prostate cancer patients revealed expression patterns similar to those of the model system in KMT2C-mutated tumours and showed that these mutations are associated with a worse prognosis. These findings help to further elucidate the still poorly understood transition from localized to metastatic prostate cancer.
About Tanja Limberger
Tanja Limberger studied biotechnology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna before she joined Lukas Kenner’s research team to do her doctoral studies with Lukas Kenner at the Medical University of Vienna, where she focused on molecular mechanisms of oncogenesis in prostatic cancer. Since 2021, Tanja Limberger has been a research associate at the Centre for Biomarker Research in Medicine (CBmed GmbH).
