Sara Wickström receives the significant Körber award

This was investigated by a Finnish doctor and cell biologist Sara Wickstrom has shown that cells respond not only to genes and chemical messages, but also to physical forces in their environment.

Wickström receives one million euros for his work Körber Award. It has been awarded for significant scientific breakthroughs since 1985. The award will be handed over to the researcher on September 18.

Finding is important, because for a long time it was thought that the function of cells is primarily controlled by genes and chemical messages from neighboring cells.

Wickström showed that the physical environment of the cell can also affect which genes are switched on or off in the cell.

This can be important especially in diseases where the tissue becomes abnormal.

These include, for example, fibrosis, i.e. scarring diseases in which the skin, lungs or kidneys are scarred, as well as cancer, in which the tumor stiffens the surrounding tissue.

Wickström estimates, that such markers, i.e. identifiers, could be helpful in accurate diagnostics.

They could perhaps be used to better assess which patients benefit from a certain treatment and how aggressive treatment is needed.

According to him, it could help, for example, in 5 to 10 years in situations where it is considered whether surgical removal of the tumor is sufficient or whether radiation therapy is also needed.

“It could help with that precise diagnosis, because now there are all kinds of precision medicines, but it is not necessarily known which patients will benefit from them,” says Wickström.

In the longer term according to Wickström, the discovery can also open up a new kind of treatment concept. The changes are epigenetic, i.e. the DNA itself does not change, but the regulation of the genes changes.

“Then we could kind of erase those memory traces with some medicine and restore normal cell function,” he says.

However, there is still a long way to go for treatments.

Now Wickström plans to investigate exactly how long-lasting these epigenetic changes can be and what their significance is in fibrotic diseases.

The work is still basic research, but immediately after the first observations, it can be assessed whether the findings could be used as disease markers.

An injury or illness can leave a harmful mark on the cells that remains even after healing.