Shedding light on tumor microenvironment – and how!

Aditi Sahu, PhD
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Abstract: Although a highly dynamic entity, the exiting knowledge on tumor microenvironment predominantly stems from in vitro and ex vivo models, leaving substantial room for in vivo imaging approaches to reveal key insights about the dynamic interactions. In vivo imaging directly in human patents can achieve precise spatial and temporal resolution, and lead to identification, characterization and tracking of clinically relevant cellular and molecular changes associated with cancer behavior, including treatment response and cancer progression. Leveraging a high-resolution label free microscopy in human patients, we are studying the inter-dependency between inflammation and vasculature that can indicate underlying immune states, phenotype the tumor microenvironment and achieve tumor landscaping for immunosuppressive features. Image-guided sampling is helping confirm the in vivo findings and setting the stage for uncovering molecular clues that correlate with specific tumor and tumor microenvironment morphology. These findings have implications in predicting treatment response, patent stratfication and identfication of novel targets.