Virtual Seminar: Exploring and Therapeutically Exploiting the Tumor Microenvironment

About this Seminar

Cancers develop in complex tissue environments, which they depend upon for sustained growth, invasion and metastasis. Different tissue and tumor microenvironments are populated by diverse cell types including innate and adaptive immune cells, fibroblasts, blood and lymphatic vascular networks, and specialized organ-specific cell types, which collectively have critical functions in regulating tumorigenesis. An example of an exquisitely organ-specific microenvironment is the brain, with a number of critical tissue-resident cells playing key roles in regulating brain cancer initiation, development and metastasis.

Dr. Joyce and her team explore how reciprocal communication between cancer cells and diverse immune and stromal cell types in the tumor microenvironment regulates each of the key stages of disease progression, as well as the response to therapeutic intervention.  The team then exploits this knowledge to devise novel and effective strategies to therapeutically target the tumor microenvironment, with a special emphasis on brain cancers.

Additional Details

This is a free event hosted by the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute and co-sponsored by the institute's Cancer Research Group. The Pioneers in Biomedical Research Seminar Series, which runs annually from September to May, has featured leading biomedical researchers from throughout the country since the program began in 2012. The lectures are also open to all members of the Virginia Tech community including graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, and staff, as well as the public.

You May Also Be Interested In...