Time/Place:

Tuesday, September 25, 2012
3:00pm
101 Stanley Thomas Hall
Tulane University (Uptown)

Refreshments will be served

Speaker:

Katarzyna A. Rejniak, Integrated Mathematical Oncology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute

Title:

Intravascular transport of circulating tumor cells: biology, mechanics and modeling challenges

Abstract:

Metastasis to distant organs is an ominous feature of most malignant tumors, and it is the major cause of mortality. However, no more than 0.01% of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) is able to withstand all steps of a metastatic cascade, such as an escape from primary  tumor  mass  into  the  blood  stream,  circulation  with  the  blood  flow  and  extravasation  into the new site that can be subsequently colonized. The processes involved in tumor cells transport in  circulation  and their extravasation, i.e., their ability to leave the circulation system under the physiological blood flow, is  still  poorly  understood.  I  will  present  the  current  biological understanding of the properties of CTCs and challenges in computational modeling of various modes of  tumor  cell  translocation under the blood flow: from circulation to rolling, to crawling, to transmigration.