BioE Seminar Series Presents: Roger Kamm

Roger Kamm, Ph.D.

Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA 

“Metastasis on a chip: Effects of intravascular and transendothelial flow”

ABSTRACT:  

Many CTCs fail to survive the voyage from the primary tumor to the metastatic site, and die before they can initiate a new tumor.  Others not only survive, but enter into the tissue where some fraction proliferate and spread.  We studied the effects of vascular flows, both intravascular (IVF) and transendothelial (TEF) on tumor cell adhesion, migration and transendothelial migration with the goal of better understanding how flow either promotes or impedes metastasis.  Our results show that CTCs migrate or are dragged in the direction of flow prior to trans-endothelial migration.  We also observe enhanced potential for TEM due to IVF.  TEF, on the other hand, has little effect on either migration of CTCs along the luminal surface of the endothelium or their propensity to undergo trans-endothelial migration, but hastens the process once initiated.  TEF increased the migration speed of tumor cells post-extravasation, and caused the cells to remain close to the outer endothelial surface. In summary, both types of flow tend to promote a pro-metastatic phenotype.

BIOGRAPHY:

Roger Kamm is the Cecil and Ida Green Distinguished Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering at MIT, where he has served on the faculty since 1978. Kamm has long been instrumental in developing research activities at the interface of biology and mechanics, formerly in cell and molecular mechanics, and now in engineered living systems.  Current interests are in developing models of healthy and diseased organ function using microfluidic technologies, with a focus on vascularization.  

Please email Elizabeth Chesley at e.chesley@northeastern.edu for the seminar link.