The Tanner lab is focused on the early stages of metastasis, when one or a few cells have disseminated from the primary tumor, survived migration, and entered distant organs. Using a combination of animal models and biophysical techniques, we aim to understand why there can be a latency of several years before detection of metastatic disease.
Metastasis remains the cause of lethality in patients. The reality is that we are not detecting secondary lesions at an early enough stage to make meaningful intervention. There is a burgeoning field investigating the role of tissue mechanics and architecture in normal tissue maintenance and in cancer promotion. However, the field is still struggling to decouple the physical from the better-known biochemical determinants of cell fate. Simply put, how do the physical properties of the tissue environment influence the emergence of tumor promotion or tumor suppression?
The Tanner lab developed new 3D culture models, incorporating architectural complexity with well-defined extracellular matrix ligand availability to mimic physiological tissue. In addition, we developed tools that directly quantitate the physical cues that a cell will see in vivo within native tissue, and in the presence of physiologic noise, to finally address these questions. To achieve this in vivo characterization, the Tanner lab designed and built a microscope that employed active microrheology optical trapping in vivo, which allowed for the quantitation of mechanical heterogeneities with micrometer spatial resolution in living zebrafish.
This line of study is critical for elucidating the mechanistic role of physical cues that affect physiological processes ranging from fast signal transduction to slower processes such as cell motility in the environments encountered during the first stages of metastasis in multiple organs.
Metastasis remains the cause of lethality in patients. The reality is that we are not detecting secondary lesions at an early enough stage to make meaningful intervention. There is a burgeoning field investigating the role of tissue mechanics and architecture in normal tissue maintenance and in cancer promotion. However, the field is still struggling to decouple the physical from the better-known biochemical determinants of cell fate. Simply put, how do the physical properties of the tissue environment influence the emergence of tumor promotion or tumor suppression?
The Tanner lab developed new 3D culture models, incorporating architectural complexity with well-defined extracellular matrix ligand availability to mimic physiological tissue. In addition, we developed tools that directly quantitate the physical cues that a cell will see in vivo within native tissue, and in the presence of physiologic noise, to finally address these questions. To achieve this in vivo characterization, the Tanner lab designed and built a microscope that employed active microrheology optical trapping in vivo, which allowed for the quantitation of mechanical heterogeneities with micrometer spatial resolution in living zebrafish.
This line of study is critical for elucidating the mechanistic role of physical cues that affect physiological processes ranging from fast signal transduction to slower processes such as cell motility in the environments encountered during the first stages of metastasis in multiple organs.
