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Hello, everyone.
My name is Xin Lu.
I'm a Boler Associate
Professor at
the Department of
Biological Science
at the University of Notre Dame
in Indiana USA.
I'm also a full member of
the Indiana Comprehensive
Cancer Center.
Today, it is my
great pleasure to
introduce the topic of
tumor-stroma interaction to you.
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Cancer has been a very important
topic in our research.
Historically,
scientists have taken
a reductionist science
method to study cancer,
which means that we take apart
the cancer tractable
components in
the cancer cells and
study them individually.
The idea is that we can deduce
the behavior of a tumor
based on the behavior
of the cancer cells.
Based on this approach,
scientists have achieved a lot.
For example, oncogenes and
tumor suppressor genes was
identified and a lot
of knowledge about
cell cycle and cell
death were identified.
Also, a lot of the
ligand-induced cell
signaling inside the cancer
cells was also discovered.
This is a great approach.
But at the same time
when we think about
real carcinoma tumors,
the solid tumors,
it's not just a bag
of cancer cells.
It's actually composed of
very complex cell types
including neoplastic
cancer cells,
and non-neoplastic
stromal cells.
For example, the fibroblasts,
endothelial cells, the immune
cells, neurons, et cetera.
We face this complex
microenvironment,
you only use the reductionist
science method anymore.
We have to consider
them as a whole
and we need to study the
tumor-stroma interactions.
We need to study the
concept of angiogenesis.
More importantly, in recent
decades, people have
discovered a lot in tumor
immunology and immunotherapy.
Today, my talk will
be mainly focused
on the non-immune part of
the stroma because there
will be a separate topic
about immune tumor
immunology later.
