Co-Leads: Kevin Janes, PhD, Allison Mays, MD, Andrew Gentles, PhD

Research

Carcinomas and certain premalignancies exhibit macroscale histologic variation that reflects gradients in nutrients, inflammatory cytokines, or other factors within the neoplasm. The “transition zones” resulting from these gradients are well recognized, but our understanding of them has not been thoroughly tested with contemporary methods or datasets from cancer systems biology. Unbiased or data-driven profiling of transition zones will challenge expectation and determine whether the field is ready to link macroscale zones to fundamental cellular transitions in cancer:  epithelial-to-mesenchymal (EMT) (1), premalignant-to-malignant (2), and premetastatic-to-metastatic (3).