On June 6th, iBET had the pleasure of welcoming Shreyas Rao for the iNOVA4Health Seminar “Engineering the tumor cell niche to study dormancy and drug resistance in metastatic breast cancer”. 

Prof. Shreyas Rao is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, USA). His research focuses on developing engineering tools to explore the role of tumor microenvironment in cancer progression, therapeutic response and resistance.

During his seminar, Prof. Rao presented his team’s latest work on biomimetic in vitro models, developed using biomaterial scaffolds, to investigate cancer dormancy and drug resistance, particularly in brain metastatic breast cancer.

These engineered systems aim to uncover strategies to re-educate the tumor microenvironment, potentially offering new strategies to halt disease progression and improve patient outcomes.

The seminar was held in a hybrid format to ensure broader accessibility for all partner institututions of the iNOVA4Health community. The iNOVA4Health community extends its sincere appreciation to Prof. Rao for the inspiring talk and for generously sharing his valuable expertise with us.