Welcome to the Laboratory for the Study of Metastatic Microenvironments (LSM2)
Directed by Prof. Cyrus Ghajar, the mission of our laboratory is to develop strategies to prevent and treat breast cancer metastases by understanding how the fate of disseminated tumor cells is dictated by the product of their autonomous properties and the properties of their microenvironment.
To do so, we employ a variety of approaches spanning organotypic culture, intravital imaging and interrogation of patient-derived specimens. While neither is perfect on their own, we believe that in depth exploration accross these complementary models will allow us to translate our findings effectively to help patients.
We are focused on a number of problems related to disseminated tumor cell fate: (1) Why are so many eliminated, and what is special about the ones that survive? (2) What are the mechanisms that maintain stablility of the surviving populations? (3) How do specific mutations function in specific niches to allow for expansion?
We believe the answers will allow us to define which patients harbor DTCs with expansion potential, and identify means to neutralize them.
