Overview
Cancer as a disease, can be regarded as having three broad stages(a) The uncontrolled growth of cells
(b) The invasion of the cancerous cells into adjacent tissues and
(c) Metastasis in which cancer cells escape from the primary site and re-establish growth at distant, secondary locations.
In breast cancer, as in other cancers of epithelial origin, it is well recognised that these proliferative, invasive and metastatic events do not result solely from rogue cancer cells acquiring additional properties and behaving abnormally within 'normal' surroundings. Rather, all three stages rely on the ability of the tumour cells to recruit and activate neighbouring non-tumour (stromal) cells and to respond to the signals that these stromal cells produced. Consequently, in our laboratory, a focus is placed on tumour cells in the context of their cellular and non-cellular environments in order to understand the molecular basis of breast cancer progression and to identify targets for prognostic/therapeutic design.
The Molecular Cell Biology Team
