Over 100 attendees, including many members of the Lydia Becker Institute of Immunology and Inflammation, packed out the CTF on 8^th January to discuss The Tumour Microenvironment. It was the first in a series of “Cells in Complex Environments” forums hosted by the Cellular and Developmental Systems (CDS) domain, which intend to explore all of the different stimuli a cell responds to in a given setting, whether chemical, mechanical, temporal or spatial, and how they simultaneously process and integrate this information to affect their overall behaviour.

Of course immunology featured heavily throughout the 17 flash talks, with Tracy Hussell discussing the role of immunomatrix in lung cancer, and Santiago Zelenay and Cathy Tournier explaining the importance of inflammation and macrophages in tumour progression and prognosis, which can be imaged non-invasively with new methods described by Kaye Williams. Treatment success has obviously been greatly improved recently by harnessing the complexity of the immune system, and Fiona Thistlethwaite explained adoptive cell therapies, whilst Tim Illidge highlighted the importance of the immune response in radiotherapy outcomes.

Attendees were keen to continue the discussions and build new collaborations looking to understand complex environments, which we are currently facilitating through a dedicated Slack workspace (to be circulated shortly). Sadly, we ran out of time before Tracy could perform the rap which she had penned specially, but we hope she will return for future events in the series, once she has removed the obscenities.

Written by Bruce Humphrey

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