TISSUE-MICROBE INTERACTIONS IN THE TUMOR MICRO-ENVIRONMENT

It is routinely cited that bacterial cells in our bodies outnumber our own cells by a factor of 10 to 1. While recent estimates have suggested that this ratio is probably off by an order of magnitude, even by more conservative counting we are still roughly half bacteria by cell number. There is a growing body of evidence that these resident bacteria regulate important aspects of tumor progression and therapy response. We believe there is a critical opportunity to leverage tissue-engineered platforms to study the tissue-microbe interaction dynamics that are challenging or impossible to observe in vivo. We are putting a significant effort into developing the tools and proof-of-concept studies to lead this new direction. Some example projects are listed below.