Fast-take: 3 new papers from the Munson Lab

This summer has been productive with three publications coming out within a month of each other! (And, all open access).

First: A perspective on the translatability of our findings in tissue engineered models of glioma to development of new biomaterials-based treatment strategies. Postdoc Chase Cornelison and Jenny Munson discuss how we can use what we know in vitro to develop new therapies in vivo. Check it out here in Frontiers Materials in a special issue edited by Dr. Brendan Harley and Dr. Sara Pedron.

Citation:RC Cornelison, JM Munson. Perspective on Translating Biomaterials Into Glioma Therapy: Lessons From in Vitro Models. Frontiers in materials. 2018 May; 5(27).

Second: Our new method to measure and map interstitial fluid flow in vivo using MRI is published in APL Bioengineering in a special issue edited by Dr. Adam Engler and Dr. Dennis Discher. This was a multi-PI and multidisciplinary project led by graduate student Kathryn Kingsmore and included electrical engineers, Dr. Scott Acton and Dr. Andrea Vaccari, biomedical engineering, Dr. Sophia Cui and Dr. Frederick Epstein (UVa), and Computational Oncologists, Dr. Daniel Abler and Dr. Russell Rockne (City of Hope). Check the publication out here. And you can see the great press release written by AIP here.

Citation: Kingsmore KM, Vaccari A, Abler D, Cui SX, Epstein FH, RC Rockne, ST Acton, JM Munson MRI analysis to map interstitial flow in the brain tumor microenvironment. Applied physics letters: Bioengineering. 2, 031905 (2018). Doi : 10.1063/1.5023503.

Third: Chemotherapy is used in a majority of cancer cases but we still don't quite understand the effect it has on the tumor and the surrounding microenvironment. In our recent publication in BMC Cancer, we show that Docetaxel, a commonly used therapy against breast cancer, induces lymphangiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment and can lead to enhanced lymph node invasion of tumor cells. Luckily, incorporation of the inhibitory antibody, anti-VEGFR3, can attenuate this effect. Check out this publication, with lead author graduate student Alexandra Harris, using in vitro and in vivo models of breast cancer here.

Citation: AR Harris, MJ Perez, JM Munson. Docetaxel facilitates lymphatic-tumor crosstalk to promote lymphangiogenesis and cancer progression. BMC Cancer. 2018 Jul 6;18(1):718. doi: 10.1186/s12885-018-4619-8