Targeting brain tumor evolution and treatment resistance
Welcome to the Rendo Lab's Website! Our research group aims to uncover the mechanisms by which brain tumor cells evolve and become resistant to treatment. Our goal is to translate these findings into therapeutic strategies that more effectively and specifically kill cancer cells.
Despite decades of research, brain tumors remain one of the most lethal cancer types. The greatest challenge is that no curative treatment exists, and all patients eventually develop resistance against the limited amount of treatment options available.
Our lab aims to study the genetic and cell plasticity mechanisms that enable malignant brain tumor cells to develop, grow, and become resistant to treatment. To this end, we leverage cutting-edge genomic, functional genetics and computational approaches to explore these translational questions in clinical samples and preclinical models, which include patient-derived cell lines, organoids, and mouse xenografts.
Our overall goal is to identify and validate novel therapeutic strategies that extend the life of patients diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor.
Our mission: To advance targets for precision neuro-oncology
News
April 2025
Veronica presented her work on ‘toxic genes in cancer’ at the Chromoploidy 2025 meeting in beautiful Stresa, Italy. She also served as a poster judge, the perfect excuse to get exposed to impressive science!
April 2025
Veronica attends the Unga Forskare’s 2025 finale as an invited speaker representing the Beijer Foundation.
April 2025
Veronica receives the 1-year Göran Gustafsson’s Prize for young researchers.
March 2025
Paper alert! A new study published in Cell Genomics shows how recurrent focal deletions constitute a mechanism by which cancer cells rescue toxicity effects caused by gene amplification. This is Veronica’s first senior author paper, in collaboration with her fantastic mentors Rameen Beroukhim and Pratiti Bandopadhayay.
March 2025
Elin travels to Switzerland and takes part in a course of single cell analysis at the Swiss Bioinformatic institute.
February 2025
Veronica becomes officially appointed as a Group Leader at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University.
February 2025
Paper alert! An example on how window of opportunity trials can help dissect the mechanisms of response and resistance associated with MDM2 inhibition in glioblastoma is out in Science Translational Medicine! This work was conducted together with Eudocia Lee, Rameen Beroukhim, Keith Ligon, and other wonderful collaborators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
February 2025
Veronica has been selected as a Beijer Researcher at the Beijer Laboratory for Gene and Neuroscience. This selection comes with a 3-year research grant.
February 2025
Elin is awarded support for methodological studies and educational courses from the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund for attending the course in Single cell analysis from the Swiss Bioinformatic Institute.
January 2025
Paper alert! A collaboration paper describing the class of ARGOS genes in cancer is out in Nature Communications! This is the result of a fantastic team effort together with the Beroukhim, Foijer and Ben-David labs.
November 2024
Elin participates in the 14th Network for Neuroblastoma and CNS tumor research in children meeting in Lund and presents our research on pediatric DMGs.
October 2024
New lab member! Noelia joins the Rendo lab as research assistant! Her work will focus on tumor evolution and treatment resistance in pediatric brain tumors.
May 2024
Congrats to Waked on defending his Bachelor’s thesis!
May 2024
Elin attended the 12th Brain Tumor Meeting in Berlin, where she presented a poster showcasing one of her research projects.
April 2024
Veronica has been awarded a position grant from the Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund, focused on studying new ways to treat the brain cancer type diffuse midline glioma.
March 2024
New lab member! Waked joins the lab to do his Bachelor’s thesis! He will assess the effects of treating high-grade glioma cell lines with p53 reactivating molecules in combination with senolytic agents.
March 2024
Veronica receives a Junior Investigator Award from the Swedish Cancer Society. This 6-year grant will support her position as a researcher studying therapeutic resistance in high-grade brain tumors.
January 2024
Congratulations to Gibran on successfully defending his Master’s thesis!
December 2023
Veronica receives a 3-year research grant from the Berth von Kantzows foundation, supporting the lab’s mission of overcoming treatment resistance in malignant brain tumors.
November 2023
Elin took part in the IGP PhD student conference, and was honored with the award for Best Pitch Talk. Congrats!
August 2023
New lab member! Gibran joins the lab for his Master’s thesis project in pharmacy. He will characterize the cellular effects of MDM2 inhibition in our high-grade glioma cell line models.
August 2023
New lab member! Elin is officially registered as a PhD student! Her thesis work will focus on treatment resistance in high-grade gliomas.
March 2023
The beginning of the Rendo Lab! Veronica starts establishing her independent research career with support from a Starting Grant by the Swedish Research Council.
Ongoing research projects
Targeting resistance to p53 reactivation in high-grade glioma
Glioblastoma (GBM) and Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG) are highly aggressive and universally fatal cancers of the brain, affecting both children and adults. The majority of high-grade gliomas carry a wild-type and functional version of the tumor suppressor gene TP53, making them susceptible to drugs that induce p53 signaling (i.e. p53 reactivators).
One of our focus areas is optimizing the use of p53 reactivating molecules in HGG patients, for which our research has shown patient survival benefits (Rendo et al. Science Translational Medicine 2025). Although many TP53 wild-type HGGs initially respond to p53 reactivation strategies, resistance frequently emerges over time. Interestingly, we observe that –in brain tumors– treatment resistance does not exclusively occur due to the acquisition of genetic mutations but is rather accompanied by adaptive changes in cellular transcriptional state.
Our research aims to characterize the transcriptional and epigenetic programs that drive resistance to p53 reactivation in HGGs, with a particular focus on the role of differentiation-associated pathways. Using CRISPR-based tools, single-cell multiomics, and lineage tracing, we are investigating how cell state dynamics influence treatment outcomes and identifying potential targets to overcome or prevent therapeutic resistance.
Assessment of transcriptional and epigenetic changes underlying cell cycle and apoptotic responses to p53 reactivators in different cellular contexts
Characterizing chemo-persistent populations in embryonal brain tumors
Embryonal brain tumors are aggressive and heterogeneous cancers that primarily affect infants. Among them, atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumors (AT/RT) are the most common CNS tumor diagnosed in children under one year of age, with no defined standard treatment and poor prognosis. Recurrence represents one of the major challenges for these patients: over 50% relapse and, as of today, there are no standard treatments for recurrent AT/RT. Our research group is interested in identifying, characterizing and targeting the tumor cells that persist after therapy with clinically used regimens. Some of our main research questions include:
What is the phenotype of treatment-persistent AT/RT cells?
What are the mechanisms driving resistance in AT/RTs?
Can we identify genetic dependencies and vulnerabilities?
To answer these questions we use cellular barcoding methods and pooled CRISPR screens to track the genetic changes occurring in AT/RT cells over the course of treatment, and to identify drivers of resistance that can be translated into treatment options. We additionally apply multi-omics approaches (bulk RNA-seq, single-cell RNA-seq) to characterize these cancer cell populations.
Overview of our experimental workflow combining cellular barcoding and pooled CRISPR screens to characterize chemotherapy-persistent AT/RT cell populations. Created with Biorender.com.
Funding
The Rendo Lab would like to thank the financial support received to cover our
lab members' research positions, projects costs, and scientific outreach efforts
Barncancerfonden
The Swedish Childhood Cancer Fund
Cancerfonden
The Swedish Cancer Society
Beijer Laboratory for Gene and Neuro Research
Göran Gustafsson Foundation
Vetenskapsrådet
The Swedish Research Council
Berth von Kantzows Foundation
The Brain Tumour Charity
Our Team
Verónica Rendo
Group Leader
Veronica studied Biology at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela, and in 2013 moved to Sweden to pursue a PhD at Uppsala University. During this time, she worked under the mentorship of Prof. Tobias Sjoblom and studied how genomic losses in cancer could be exploited for therapy. In 2019, she moved to Boston (USA) to pursue a postdoc in Dr. Rameen Beroukhim’s lab at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, affiliated with Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Here, Veronica focused on studying mechanisms of response and resistance associated with p53 reactivation in malignant brain tumors. She additionally continued her work on aneuploidy, describing a new class of therapeutic targets as ‘toxic genes’ – genes whose high-levels of expression are detrimental to cancer cell fitness. In 2025, Veronica became a Group Leader in Neuro-Oncology at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology at Uppsala University. Her position is funded by the Swedish Cancer Foundation and the Beijer Laboratory for gene and neurological science.
Outside the lab: Veronica is a foodie who dances salsa and loves exploring nature with her family.
Elin Vikström
PhD Student
Elin is a PhD student in the group specializing on High-Grade Glioma research. She holds a Master’s degree in Molecular Medicine from Uppsala University and a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from Umeå University. During her time in Umeå, she worked in the lab of Andreas Hörnblad, investigating the role of distant gene-regulatory elements in zebrafish. After moving to Uppsala, she joined the lab of Karin Forsberg-Nilsson, where she focused on studying the brain tumor microenvironment and tumor-stroma interactions. For her Master’s thesis, Elin started in Fredrik Swartling's group at Uppsala University where her project involved developing and testing a gene therapy approach for glioma, a project she continues to expand on during her PhD. She joined the group as a PhD student in 2022, contributing to a larger effort to understand treatment resistance and develop novel therapeutic strategies for aggressive brain tumors. Her research aims to uncover the molecular mechanisms underlying resistance and to identify new targets for intervention.
Outside the lab: Elin enjoys outdoor activities and often spends her weekends hiking and exploring Sweden’s natural landscapes.
Noelia Ares Boveda
Research Assistant
Noelia joined the Rendo lab in 2024 as Research Assistant. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Health Biology from the University of Alcalá (Spain) and completed her exchange studies in Umeå (Sweden), where she later earned a Master’s degree in Biomedicine. During this time she explored different areas of cancer biology: in the Remeseiro lab (Umeå), she investigated the non-coding genome and gene regulatory networks underlying neuron-to-glioma communication in glioblastoma, followed by the study of tumor immunology in prostate cancer (Wikström lab, Umeå). Sponsored by the Vienna Biocenter, she studied the role of epigenetic factors in pediatric leukemia at St. Anna’s Children’s Cancer Research Institute (Seruggia lab, Vienna, Austria). In the Rendo lab, Noelia applies functional genomics to investigate tumor evolution and therapy resistance in embryonal brain tumors and high-grade gliomas.
Outside the lab: you will most likely find Noelia reading a good book, trying out new recipes and exploring new places.
Alumni
Gibran Tadross
M.Sc. Student
Alper Koc
M.Sc. Student (ATMM*)
Waked Hamed
B.Sc. Student
*ATMM: Advanced Techniques for Molecular Medicine is a Master's course ran by the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology at Uppsala University. The Rendo Lab participates in the course's organization and hosts ATMM students every year
Publications
Lab Life
.jpg?etag=null&sourceContentType=image%2Fjpeg&ignoreAspectRatio&resize=2500,1882&quality=85 "PXL_20240109_093656912.MP (1)")
