Research Abstract
The long term goal of our research is to understand the fundamental nature of vascular and interstitial barriers in human and rodent tumors, to overcome them or to exploit them for cancer detection and treatment. Quantitative understanding of pathophysiological phenomena in solid tumors is developed using five unique yet complementary approaches in our research: 1) a macroscopic approach using tissue-isolated tumors to monitor arterial and venous blood in rodent and human tumors; 2) a microscopic approach to directly visualize the events in the tumor microcirculation; 3) in vitro characterization of deformability, permeability, and adhesion of cells; 4) molecular biology techniques including development of transgenic cell lines and animals; and 5) mathematical modeling to integrate existing data and to guide new clinical and experimental studies. These five approaches are intertwined in six interdisciplinary projects: 1) tumor blood flow; 2) metabolic microenvironment; 3) transvascular transport; 4) interstitial transport; 5) cell transport; and 6) mathematical modeling.