Vasilena Gocheva
Jacks Laboratory
Koch Institute at MIT

Our understanding of the role of the tumor microenvironment in the development and progression of lung cancer, the most common type of cancer worldwide, remains rudimentary. The goal of my project is to determine whether the stroma contributes to tumor progression as insights into the complex, reciprocal interactions between tumor and stromal cells in their local surroundings may provide new opportunities for more focused therapeutic strategies.

This is a mouse lung tumor that shows tumor cell in blue and different populations of normal cells (in red and green) that are present within the tumor microenvironment. I wanted to show that there is a large infiltration of different populations of normal cells in lung tumors. Whether this stroma is actively contributing to tumorigenesis is a question I am addressing in my project.