The scientific profile of the Department

Research-wise, the Department is primarily interested in looking for new molecular markers of human cancers, such as colorectal cancer or kidney cancer. Research is financed by the statutory funds of the University of Warmia and Mazury (UWM)  as well as by the research grants of the National Science Centre. The Department of Human Histology and Embryology of the UWM cooperates with the Department of Pathomorphology of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the UWM, the Department of Histology and Urology of the Medical University of Gdańsk, as well as the Surgical Oncology Ward of the Independent Public Health Care Centre of the Ministry of Interior and the Warmia and Mazury Oncology Centre in Olsztyn.

One of the projects’ realized in the Department of Human Histology and Embryology concerns  genes’ expression profile in an apoptotic pathway which is partly independent of p53 in the tissue of colorectal cancer, one of the most common cancers. With the use of immunohistochemical (IHC) and molecular biology (real-time PCR, Western blotting) methods, gene expression of PLAGL1, p300, p53 and Bax has been analysed in the neoplastic tissue, in macroscopically unchanged samples from patients' colon, and in colonic mucosal biopsies of healthy subjects. In an another project expression of galanin (a neuropetide which reveals neuroprotective properties) is studied qualitatively and quantitatively in the intramural ganglia of the colon in patients suffering from colorectal cancer,

Due to the heterogeneity of kidney cancer, another project specifically refers to the ccRCC (clear cell renal cell carcinoma). Gene expression of PLAGL1, p300, p53 and Bax has been analysed in neoplastic tissue and the unchanged part of the renal parenchyma of the same patient with the use of IHC method and molecular biology techniques. Pathogenesis of ccRCC is also analysed in a study that concerns participation of microRNA in the regulation of DDR1 and IKKb gene expression in the cell lines of the renal cancer.