Moving Out

One major reason why cancer is so difficult to cure is because it can spread from one location to other organs, in a process known as metastasis. Cancer cells move around the body by invading blood vessels and travelling down them, before leaving to proliferate in new tissues. How they are able to move out of the bloodstream is still poorly understood, so researchers have designed an artificial set-up that mimics blood vessels to study this final step in their journey. Tumour cells are injected into the system, and their behaviour can be observed under the microscope. From left to right and top to bottom, these images, taken at half-hour intervals, show a cancer cell (in green) squeezing its way out after it becomes trapped in a vessel. This new technique should eventually allow drugs to be tested for their ability to interfere with this process, and so hinder metastasis.

Written by Emmanuelle Briolat

Emmanuelle Briolat

Writer

A researcher specialising in visual signals in Lepidoptera, camouflage and the effects of light pollution, Emmanuelle’s writing covers a range of topics, from biomedical research to children’s books about moth defences.

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• Roger D. Kamm
• Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• Integr. Biol., 2013, 5, 1262