Dr. Dr. Sebastian Balbach’s research focuses on novel targeted therapies against cancer stem cells. These are the cells that fuel cancer growth and lead to relapse. For many common cancer types, research has identified cancer stem cells, and major advances in the development of therapies that target these stem cells have been made.

Dr. Dr. Balbach attempts to solve a long-standing but urgent question with novel methods: Are sarcomas, aggressive cancers of muscle, bone, or joints prevalent in children, driven by malignant stem cells? Conventional methods have failed to identify these stem cells. Sebastian Balbach will use novel single-cell sequencing technologies to find them, label them with molecular barcodes to track their fate, and identify their Achilles’ heels that can be targeted for future therapies. His vision is to eliminate cancer stem cells in sarcoma to truly cure this disease.

The project of Sebastian Balbach is supported from 2019 to 2020 by the “Young Investigator Fund for Innovative Research Ideas” of the Schering Stiftung and the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.