Characterization of the Tumor Microenvironment in Murine Models

The tumor microenvironment (TME) consists of cellular and non-cellular components, making it both heterogeneous and complex. It can be roughly divided into tumor vasculature, immune cells, fibroblasts, the extracellular matrix (ECM), and signaling molecules. The complex nature and heterogeneity of the TME provides several challenges when it comes to therapeutic treatments of cancer. The use of ultrasound and microbubbles (USMB) treatment has shown promising outcomes to improve drug delivery, but the results have shown a heterogeneous drug uptake. This project is a joint effort to establish methodology for characterization and quantification of different components of the TME within murine tumor models. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the heterogeneity observed during drug uptake studies, and how treatment affects or is affected by the TME.