The project will focus on high-grade brain cancer glioblastoma (GBM) which is the most aggressive primary brain tumour. Despite intensive multimodality therapies, patients die within one year of diagnosis and only 5% survive for more than 5 years. Understanding the relationship between cancer cell adhesion to the surrounding environment (extracellular matrix) and invasiveness has been a long-standing pursuit in cancer biology. The objectives of this work are to i) develop a cell population adhesion assay, using negative buoyancy, to measure the adhesion strength of human GBM; ii) investigate how GBM adhesion strength correlates with infiltrative and invasive capacity across individual tumours and between cell lines within the same tumour.
This is a fluorescent image of a primary GBM cell line.
| Dr. Athina Markaki |
Department of Engineering |
| Dr. Colin Watts |
Neurosurgical Oncology, Addenbrooke's Hospital |
