Imaging the growth of tumor blood vessels in real-time

Have you ever wondered how a tumor grows? It’s pretty fascinating.

Imagine that a tumor is a new city being built. It needs to connect itself to nearby cities through roads because those roads bring deliveries of food and other supplies that would allow the city to survive. In a tumor, these “roads” are actually blood vessels that bring oxygen and nutrients that tumor cells need to survive. So what happens if those “roads” (or blood vessels) are blocked? Then the tumor would have a hard time surviving. It turns out that one really important way cancer researchers can stop tumors from growing is by cutting off their “roads”.

In my latest research, I am using fluorescent fish to study whether this new cancer drug stops blood vessels from growing in a tumor. In real-time! If you think that imaging this in real-time is as AMAZING as I think it is, you might be wondering, how is that possible? These fish have a genetic mutation that makes their blood vessels fluorescent, which means that the vessels “glow” when imaged using a special microscope. On the left side of the image above, you can see what blood vessels (shown in green) look like in an untreated tumor (shown in magenta). On the right side of the image above, you can see how the cancer drug appears to stop the blood vessels from growing! Looks promising, no? :)