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Research in Tumour Microcirculation

In the Tumour Microcirculation Group, we are studying the blood vessels that supply tumours with oxygen and nutrients and their role in cancer therapy. Tumours require a blood supply to grow and the blood vessels provide a route for the spread of tumour cells to other sites in the body. Therefore, targeting treatment to the blood vessels rather than the tumour cells is a potential means of killing tumours. This has the added advantages that preventing blood flow through a single vessel can kill a large number of tumour cells and that delivering vascular-damaging drugs to their site of action on the blood vessels is much easier than delivery directly to the tumour cells. In our model systems, we are investigating ways of targeting tumour blood vessels and we are studying the factors that affect the way the vessels behave.

The vascular supply of tumours is abnormal, with regions of very poor blood flow. One of the consequences of this is that many of the tumour cells survive in very low levels of oxygen. Tumour cells can adapt to this condition and become resistant to therapy. However, it’s also possible to exploit these unique tumour conditions for the development of new treatments. For instance, we have been involved with developing a gene therapy approach to cancer treatment, which aims to specifically target the tumour cells existing at a low oxygen concentration.