Search results for "Cancer biology"

Automated Measurement of Microcirculatory Blood Flow Velocity in Pulmonary Metastases of Rats

2014

Because the lung is a major target organ of metastatic disease, animal models to study the physiology of pulmonary metastases are of great importance. However, very few methods exist to date to investigate lung metastases in a dynamic fashion at the microcirculatory level, due to the difficulty to access the lung with a microscope. Here, an intravital microscopy method is presented to functionally image and quantify the microcirculation of superficial pulmonary metastases in rats, using a closed-chest pulmonary window and automated analysis of blood flow velocity and direction. The utility of this method is demonstrated to measure increases in blood flow velocity in response to pharmacologi…

Dendritic cells as a tool to induce anergic and regulatory T cells

2001

Abstract The induction of antigen-specific T-cell tolerance in the thymus and its maintenance in the periphery is crucial for the prevention of autoimmunity. As well as their stimulatory functions, there is growing evidence that dendritic cells, acting as professional antigen-presenting cells, also maintain and regulate T-cell tolerance in the periphery. This control function is exerted by certain maturation stages and subsets of different ontogeny, and can be influenced by immunomodulatory agents. What is the current state of knowledge of the ‘immunoregulatory' properties of dendritic cells and how might tolerance-inducing dendritic cells be relevant to therapeutic applications in humans?

Targeting Angiogenesis by Therapeutic Antibodies

2014

Ten Years’ Experience with an E-Learning Lecture Series on Cancer Biology and Pharmacology

2013

In life sciences, the internet is an indispensable medium for research, but has not yet realized its full potential for teaching. The concept of e-learning has been developed over the past decades for undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs. We set up an e-learning lecture on cancer biology and pharmacology that was first offered in 2003 to students of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg and to students of Pharmacy at the University of Mainz, Germany. The present paper recapitulates the first decade of experiences with this e-learning lecture from both the students’ and the teachers’ perspectives. A total of 317 students during the past 10 years participated in…

Biological and Mechanical Characterization of the Random Positioning Machine (RPM) for Microgravity Simulations

2021

The rapid improvement of space technologies is leading to the continuous increase of space missions that will soon bring humans back to the Moon and, in the coming future, toward longer interplanetary missions such as the one to Mars. The idea of living in space is charming and fascinating; however, the space environment is a harsh place to host human life and exposes the crew to many physical challenges. The absence of gravity experienced in space affects many aspects of human biology and can be reproduced in vitro with the help of microgravity simulators. Simulated microgravity (s-μg) is applied in many fields of research, ranging from cell biology to physics, including cancer biology. In…