Breast cancer cell invades artificial blood vessel.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology are visualizing many of the steps involved in how cancer cells break free from tumors and travel through the blood stream, potentially on their way to distant organs. Using an artificial blood vessel developed in the laboratory of Peter Searson, INBT director and professor of materials science and engineering, scientists are looking more closely into the complex journey of the cancer cell. Learn more at this link: http://inbt.jhu.edu/2014/10/17/artificial-blood-vessel-visualizes-cancer-cell-journey/ Plain language caption: Watch how a breast cancer cell approaches the artificial blood vessel, balls up and then forces its way through the endothelial cells (invasion) and into the streaming fluids within the channel of the device. Technical caption: A single MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cell invading and intravasating into an HMVEC vessel under shear stress (12-15 dyne cm-2). This video originally appeared in the supplementary materials of the journal article "Live-Cell Imaging of Invasion and Intravasation in an Artificial Microvessel Platform," by Andrew D. Wong and Peter C. Searson, Cancer Research September 1, 2014 74:4937-4945; Published OnlineFirst June 26, 2014; doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-14-1042