Microenvironment regulation of metastasis
February 5, 2021 1:00-2:00 p.m.
Dr. Kandice Tanner
Laboratory of Cell Biology, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
ABSTRACT: In the event of metastatic disease, emergence of a lesion can occur at varying intervals from diagnosis and in some cases following successful treatment of the primary tumor. Genetic factors that drive metastatic progression have been identified, such as those involved in cell adhesion, signaling, extravasation and metabolism. However, organ specific biophysical cues may be a potent contributor to the establishment of these secondary lesions. We developed a novel optical tweezer based active microrheology to measure tissue mechanical properties in vivo using a bespoke home built optical tweezers. We also developed preclinical models using the zebrafish to recapitulate human disease. We then asked if biophysical properties of the stromal architecture regulated organ colonization in vivo? I will discuss our efforts to determine what physical cues influence disseminated tumor cells in different organ microenvironments using in vitro and in vivo preclinical models such as 3D culture systems and zebrafish.
BIOGRAPHY: Kandice Tanner received her doctoral degree in Physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign under Professor Enrico Gratton. She completed post-doctoral training at the University of California, Irvine specializing in dynamic imaging of thick tissues. She then became a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Post-doctoral fellow jointly at University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory under Dr. Mina J. Bissell. Dr. Tanner joined the National Cancer Institute as a Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator in July, 2012, where she integrates concepts from molecular biophysics and cell biology to learn how cells and tissues sense and respond to their physical microenvironment, and to thereby design therapeutics and cellular biotechnology. She received tenure at NIH in 2020. For her work, she has been awarded the 2013 National Cancer Institute Director’s Intramural Innovation Award, the 2015 NCI Leading Diversity award, Federal Technology Transfer Awards, the 2016 Young Fluorescence Investigator award from the Biophysical Society, and named as a Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering in 2016 by the Biomedical Engineering Society and Fellow of the American Physical Society.