Waging War on Metastatic Cancer
Fischell Institute researcher Xiaoming (Shawn) He (BIOE) and his team have dedicated years of tireless work to tackling two key questions: what causes cancer to metastasize, and could strategically targeted therapies halt even the fastest-moving cancers?
To address the former challenge, He and members of his lab teamed up with researchers from The Ohio State University, the University of Maryland’s Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the University of Missouri School of Medicine to shed light on a prevailing theory that among the many types of cancer cells embedded within a malignant tumor are cancer cells that act as stem cells.
He and his collaborators achieved a breakthrough discovery that supports the stem cell hypothesis. Last year, the team developed a novel technique to isolate a single cancer cell that fits the proverbial mold of a CSC. Inspired by nature’s own process – whereby a single cell proliferates into a cell colony in a miniaturized nanoliter core – He and his team created a miniaturized 3D microcapsule to encapsulate one single cancer cell in such a way that they could mimic the conditions under which stem cell colonies form from a single cell in an embryo.
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