Project 467012

As cancer progresses, it can spread from the original tumor to distal organs/tissues through a process called metastasis. One target metastatic site is the brain, where formation of metastases is deadly, leading to average patient survival rates less than 1 year. Patients with brain metastases often display one of two patterns: either a localized lesion with a well-defined border between cancer cells and brain, or an invasive lesion where cancer cells spread and invade much deeper into the brain. After surgical removal of brain metastases, patients with localized tumors survive longer and have fewer instances of cancer recurrence than patients with invasive metastases. However, the reasons some brain metastases remain isolated, and some do not is still unknown. Discovering the process that cause these differences could lead to new treatments for patients. Modelling brain metastases remains very difficult given the complexity and inaccessibility of brain tissue. We have created a laboratory-based method to observe live cancer cells in isolated mouse brain tissue to understand how they migrate and invade. Using advanced microscopy techniques, we will observe the formation of metastases within the brain tissue, allowing us to measure how tumor cells behave and move. We intend to study and understand the differences between cancer cells that fail to invade versus those that form highly invasive brain metastases. This experimental model could also be expanded to patient derived brain cancer cells to develop personalized medical treatments regimes. Furthermore, this model will become a powerful tool for the study of organs subject to cancer spread such as the liver