Cancer cells use multiple adaptations to gain an advantage and grow in unfavorable environments. As seen in the detailed imagery shared by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), cancer cells can use their hypoxic environment to adapt and promote tumor growth and invasion. At Larkspur, we are developing drugs that target cancer cell fitness, attacking these adaptations to make cancer cells vulnerable and to promote multiple mechanisms of cancer cell death. Learn more here: https://larkspur.bio/
As tumors grow, they outpace the surrounding blood vessels' ability to provide enough oxygen, a state known as hypoxia. Rather than killing the tumor, however, hypoxia triggers changes in cancer cell metabolism that promote tumor growth and spread. Understanding more about hypoxia in cancer cells may help researchers find better ways of managing the disease. This 2015 image of a mouse model for HER2-positive breast cancer uses an imaging technique called transparent tumor tomography that three-dimensionally visualizes the tumor microenvironment at a single-cell resolution. Hypoxic areas are in green; HER2 proteins in blue; CD31 endothelial cells in red.