Chris Contag, Stanford

Three Problems:

• The small numbers of cells that comprise early metastatic sites make these sites difficult to locate.
• The nature of metastatic cells is uncertain without clear cell surface markers or other known distinguishing characteristics, and therefore identifying those cells is difficult. Using cell surface markers that are characteristic of late stage disease may not be relevant.
• The characteristics of a cancer cell the enable it to escape the primary site are not well understood and the markers on such cells have not been described.

Background Papers:

• Synergistic Antitumor Effects of Immune Cell-Viral Biotherapy

• Integrating the biological characteristics of oncolytic viruses and immune cells can optimize therapeutic benefits of cell-based delivery

• Cancer stem cells from human breast tumors are involved in spontaneous metastases in orthotopic mouse models.