Cells at war
Did you know that some cancer cells crush their neighbors?
It's a real battle of forces going on inside our tissues!
Tumor cells become harder and more contracted, to the point of making the healthy cells around them disappear.
At the Institut Pasteur, Romain Levayer's team is studying this “mechanics of tumors”: understanding how the surface tension of cells influences their behavior and their power of domination.
In this study, led by Léo Valon and Alexis Matamoro-Vidal, the researchers use fruit flies (Drosophila) to observe this war between cells in real time, then combine these images with mathematical models to reveal the physical laws behind tumor development.
By deciphering the mechanics of living organisms, they open up new avenues for understanding how cancers form and spread.
(video in french, english subtitles available translated by AI)