Olympus IX51 inverted microscope
Si (Stacie) Chen
Princess Imoukhuede Laboratory
Funded by the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, and NSF
Blood vessels supply the nutrients necessary for organ and tissue function; blood vessel growth is also an important part of tumor formation. This image displays an experimental model for studying how blood vessels form. In this experiment, researchers found that the number of starting cells and nutrients provided to them are critical to forming vessel-like structures in the laboratory. This model can be used in the future to test drugs that block the blood vessel growth that allows tumors to grow.