Biomedical Engineering Scientific Interest Group: Engineered Extracellular Matrix Models to Study Tumor Heterogeneity

Biomedical Engineering Scientific Interest Group Dr. Fischbach is the Stanley Bryer 1946 Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, Director of Cornell's Physical Sciences Oncology Center on the Physics of Cancer Metabolism, and Associate Director of Cornell Nanoscale Science and Engineering Facility. Dr. Fischbach will review the compositional, microarchitectural, and mechanical hallmarks of the pro-tumorigenic extracellular matrix (ECM) and highlight biomaterials and engineering approaches to recapitulate these properties for in vitro and in vivo studies of cancer. She also will describe how such engineered platforms may be explored to define the functional links between cancer-associated ECM remodeling and tumor invasion, and she will discuss potential implications for metastasis. The development, progression, and therapy response of cancer is determined by the evolution of intratumor heterogeneity. However, how ECM remodeling regulates the phenotypic diversity of tumor and stromal cells, and which consequences these changes have on malignancy, remains poorly understood. Dr. Fischbach will explain how increasing knowledge of these connections is critical as aberrant ECM remodeling often precedes tumor development (e.g., during obesity), regulates many different hallmarks of cancer including proliferation, metabolism, and angiogenesis, and can be used to diagnose and treat cancer more effectively. Studying the functional links between ECM remodeling and canc...
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