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Lukas Kenner

Please note this website is not updated anymore as the LBI-CR was integrated into its partner universities.

The research group of LK consists currently of  several students, and two biomedical scientists financed through the LBI-CR, MUW, VETMED and third party grants. The team is focused on transgenic mouse research and the analysis of tumour models as well as human patients tumor samples. Lukas Kenner (LK) is group leader at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research focusing on molecular aspects of prostate cancer.

The research team of Lukas Kenner has now been integrated into the Partner Medical University Vienna.

The research team of (from left) Lukas Kenner (Group Leader), Jan Pencik (Postdoc), Astrid Aufinger (PhD student), Sabine Lagger (Postdoc), Tanja Limberger (PhD student), Michaela Schlederer (Biomedical Scientist), Ines Garces de los Fayos Alonso (PhD student), Olaf Merkel (Associate Professor), Michael Kothmayer (Master student), Carina Scherz (Bachelor student), Jack Liang (PhD Student), Nicole Prutsch (PhD student), Elisabeth Gurnhofer (Biomedical Scientist) (from left)

The group of LK formed in 2006 and LK supervises several national and international research projects. Together with our partner Company TissueGnostics™ LK and Biomedical Scientist Michaela Schlederer developed and improved software for protein quantification stained by immunohistochemical or immunofluorescence techniques from tissue slides.One focus of his group is the role of JunB for Lymphoma development, which is partly funded by the FWF and the “Fellinger” Fonds. Further grant money was attracted through international collaboration with groups in Italy and France (www.novussanguis.org) focusing on translational work with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). In addition, LK was part of the GenAU (Genome Austria) Inflammobiota project) which focuses on the role of Jak/Stat pathway in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). At the LBI-CR, LK investigates the role of Jak/Stat pathway in prostate cancer development.

About Lukas Kenner

Prof. Kenner is an expert in comparative pathology and as of March 2017 he has more than 143 PubMed based publications with more than 6.600 citations and an h-index of 41 according to his google scholar profile. He serves continuously as reviewer for internationally reputed journals. In addition to the funding of the LBG and partner institutions towards the LBI-CR, he has been responsible to obtain more than 1.5 M€ of external funding towards his research.

Since 2014 he is Professor for "Pathology of Experimental Animals" in a joint appoitment of the Medical University Vienna and the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. LK has studied medicine at the University Graz and received his board certification as Pathologist in 2001. He was head of the histopathology unit at the Research Institute for Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, where he collaborated closely with Erwin Wagner. He runs his independent research group since 2006 and is vice-director of the LBI-CR.

He is recipient of several prestigious awards including the Otto-Loewi Scholarship of the Austrian science foundation (1993), the esearch award of the Austrian Society of Nephrology (1995), the research award of the Hoechst–Foundation (1996), Sanofi-Aventis Award 2010, Science and Innovations award of the German Society for Hematology und Oncology (DGHO) 2011, and the CESAR award of the Central European Society for Anticancer Drug Research (2013).

Please follow the link for a full CV of Lukas Kenner.

 

 

 

 

Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma (ALCL)

ALCL is a highly malignant form of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and frequently associated with a chromosomal translocation generating the oncogenic fusion protein NPM-ALK. We take advantage of a NPM-ALK transgenic mouse model for ALCL lymphomagenesis driven by the human CD4 promoter (Chiarle et al. 2003). These mice develop high malignant T-cell lymphomas. Human ALCLs were recently shown to constitutively overexpress the AP-1 proteins c-Jun and JunB. The role of c-Jun and JunB in T-cell lymphomas has not been fully understood.

Prostate Cancer

We established 4 tissue arrays of 8 prostate cancer patients before and 8 patients after androgen ablation therapy, as well as 2 prostate samples from non-tumor affected prostates as controls. To compare the expression levels of candidate oncogenes from patients without prostate cancer (PC), normal prostate tissue was included from prostates of patients that underwent a cystectomy operation. Target gene expression analysis was performed using immunofluorescence microscopy and digital image analysis techniques from our Partner TissueGnostics.

The role of persistent Jak-Stat in prostate cancer progression and therapy

An important treatment strategy for prostate cancer patients is androgen depletion. After increased time (more then two years), however, most patients suffer from relapse due to development of androgen insensitivity. This is frequently caused by a mutated hormone-independent or amplified androgen receptor that occurs after 3-4 years of androgen ablation therapy.

Collaborations

Current collaborations of group LK 
The group of LK holds long term international and national collaborations. It was essential for joint publications, but also successful grant money attraction:

National

Zoran Culig, Medical University Innsbruck, Urology Department, on Stat3 signaling and invasion in prostate cancer.

Thomas Decker, MFPL Vienna IFNAR in IBD

Uli Jäger, MUW, Internal Medicine Department I, Role of PDGFR in NPM-ALK lymphomagenesis.

Publications

Below you find  a list of some of the most relevant publications from the Kenner research team. For a complete list of publications by Prof. Lukas Kenner please follow this link.

Team Kenner