Metastasis

So we usually like to start out with just like an elevator pitch, like what do you do on campus?

okay yeah so i'm a fifth year phd student and i'm interested in studying cancer metastasis or how cancer cells spread throughout the body we're really interested in cancer metastasis because it's the main cause of mortality from almost all types of cancer and it's really hard to treat So I studied the underlying molecular mechanisms that enable cancer cells to spread.

And the ultimate goal of this research is to reveal a means to target metastasis in the clinic.

So one of the ways we think about targeting cancer cells or metastasizing cancer cells is to identify traits of these cancer cells that are unique from normal cells.

So when you say metastasis, it's like envisioning the cancer cells kind of moving around the body.

And is it kind of how they break out from their solid tumor to then Travel? Yeah.

So there's a bunch of different steps to cancer metastasis.

But definitely, so inside the tumor, the cancer cells can eventually break out of their tissue, survive through the bloodstream, travel to a new area of the body, and then actually kind of integrate into that neighboring tissue and colonize there.

Well, I think that, uh, listening to the oncologist is the first step because, um, the, uh, surgery apparently has eliminated a cancer, but there may be residual cells.

Metastasis can occur.

And so, um, they often recommend, uh, a cleanup of the entire system using chemo, uh, after doing some surgery.

And the things that you need to ask the oncologist w- when you discuss chemotherapy are really specific.

Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels, and tumors often need new blood vessels to obtain oxygen and nutrients and to grow.

Metastasis is the spread of cancer cells from the original tumor to another part of the body.

And platelets can interact with circulating tumor cells and may help those cells survive in the bloodstream and evade immune detection.

So aspirin's antiplatelet effects have therefore attracted interest in cancer research.

Thank you for that very, very marvelous response.

Now, Dr. Kurtz, your diagnosis with advanced metastatic- Metastatic,

it's pronounced metastatic.

Okay, metastatic prostate cancer.

Yes.

And then finally, deliver me from metastatic cancer.

Metastatic.

Metastatic means that it has spread.

Eeh.

[laughs] [muffled talking] Yeah.

Metastatic cancer.

[praying in tongues] Wow.

It actually increased the rate at which that melanoma was able to spread to the lungs.

Metastasize is the technical term.

So I wouldn't say these things are necessarily going to cause cancer.

I think perhaps if you have a pre-existing cancer, they might accelerate that tumor, but we just don't know what the effects are.

So, uh-

Metastasis, I think.

Yeah

... metastasis.