How cancer cells move and metastasize is influenced by the fluids surrounding them – understanding how tumors migrate can help stop their spread
Yizeng Li, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Cell migration, or how cells move in the body, is essential to both normal body function and disease progression. Cell movement is what allows body parts to grow in the right place during early development, wounds to heal and tumors to become metastatic.
Over the last century, how researchers understood cell migration was limited to the effects of biochemical signals, or chemotaxis, that direct a cell to move from one place to another. For example, a type of immune cell called a neutrophil...