Professor Hubert Hondermarck

Professor Hubert Hondermarck

Professor Hubert Hondermarck is a HMRI and University of Newcastle researcher specialising in Cancer Neuroscience. His world-class research has taken him around the world and back. Since, 2011, he's been conducting his transformative cancer research right here from HMRI and the University of Newcastle. 
View Hubert’s research outputs on his University of Newcastle profile >

 

Profile

Professor Hubert Hondermarck is a leading international authority in cancer neuroscience, highly regarded for his groundbreaking work on the role of the nervous system in oncology.

He has been successful in establishing this as a new direction in oncology research internationally, with great potential for substantially improving cancer treatment outcomes.

His group is one of only a small number of research teams collaborating worldwide to take this line of enquiry forward. At the University of Newcastle, he is head of the Cancer Research Theme of the School of Biomedical Sciences and Pharmacy and Deputy Director of the Global Centre for Gynaecological Diseases. He is a co-founder and member of the Board of the Cancer Detection and Therapy (CDT) Research Program at HMRI.

Professor Hondermarck’s PhD in neurobiochemistry was awarded at the University of Lille in France and early in his career, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California in Irvine where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of neuronal cell differentiation. He went on to found a research unit at the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (U908 INSERM) and directed it for 10 years. In 2011, he moved to the University of Newcastle to start a new program on the impact of the nervous system in cancer initiation and progression. 

 

Research Interests

  • Role of the nervous system in cancer initiation and progression. This is applicable across the different types of human cancers (brain, prostate, breast etc).
  • Cross-talk between nerves and cancer cells, and its impact on tumour growth and metastasis. 
  • The identification of new therapeutic targets and biomarkers in oncology to improve cancer early detection and treatment.
     

Research Impact

My cancer neuroscience laboratory (created in 2011, long before the term cancer neuroscience started to appear in the literature), has identified that most human tumours are innervated by nerves of both autonomic (sympathetic and parasympathetic) and sensory nerves.

This has been demonstrated by using neuronal markers in histopathological analysis of clinical tumours. In various human tumours, we have demonstrated the presence of both individual axons and nerve trunks in association with tumour aggressiveness. The more nerves in the tumour microenvironment, the more aggressive the tumour is and that is associated with reduced patient survival.

In addition, we have also been first to demonstrate the role of neurotrophic growth factors (such as nerve growth factor (NGF) or brain-derived neurotrophic growth factor (BDNF) produced by cancer cells as the drivers of nerve infiltration in the tumour, similar to what occurs for organ innervation during embryogenesis.

We have also shown both in vitro and in vivo, that the interruption of neuronal growth in the tumour microenvironment by using blocking antibodies against neurotrophic growth factors strongly decrease tumour growth and that nerves and neurosignaling are therefore therapeutic targets in oncology. New and less toxic cancer treatments originating from this research are now emerging.

THE KNOWLEDGE GENERATED BY THIS PROGRAM: has influenced research in the field of cancer but also in the field of regeneration.

Neurogenesis is now acknowledged as a new Hallmark of cancer. The practical applications of those discoveries are two-fold:

  1. Nerve density in the tumour is a predictor of cancer aggressiveness, and therefore it can be used to define cancer prognosis and patient outcome in various malignancies.
  2. Innovative therapies targeting either neurotrophic growth factors or neuronal signalling can efficiently be used to treat cancer with less side effects. For instance, we have participated in the preclinical testing of Entrectinib a tyrosine kinase inhibitor of the neurotrophic tyrosine kinase receptor (NTRK) that is currently used in NTRK fusion positive tumours.

 

Future Focus

Manipulate the nerve-cancer cell cross-talk and use it to develop new strategies to prevent and treat cancer.

 

Specialised/Technical Skills

  • Neuronal and cancer cell cultures
  • Molecular and proteomic analyses
  • Functional analysis of cancer cell survival/death, proliferation and metastasis
  • Methodologies to study neuronal growth and differentiation

 

Affiliations

Why did you get into research?
To put it provocatively, I believe that knowledge is somehow boring. What is really interesting is what we don't know and don't understand. That is basically why I got into research.

My interest is always towards the hidden and mysterious side. Despite considerable progress, cancer is still a mysterious disease and in particular the impact of the brain, mind and nervous system in cancer initiation and progression is largely unknown.
What would be the ultimate goal for your research?

To contribute to a better understanding of the mind-body connection and in particular its influence on cancer initiation and progression.

The ultimate goal is to use this innovative knowledge to develop new strategies to prevent cancer occurrence and to cure it more naturally and with no side effects.