Konrad Hochedlinger

Konrad Hochedlinger demonstrated that induced pluripotent stem cells retain epigenetic memory of their tissue of origin through incomplete DNA methylation reprogramming, and that cancer cells similarly retain epigenetic memory of their cell of origin that influences tumor behavior and therapy response. His work showed that reprogramming cancer cells to pluripotency can erase oncogenic epigenetic programs and restore normal differentiation potential, but that residual epigenetic memory frequently causes reversion to the malignant state. He investigates the specific epigenetic barriers that prevent complete reprogramming of cancer cells and strategies to overcome them for differentiation-based therapies.