The Sci-Files – 03/28/2021 – Raisa Glabman – Mapping the Mammary Tumor Microenvironment
March 29, 2021

On this week’s The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Dr. Raisa Glabman. Dr. Glabman is a veterinarian and fellow in the NIH Comparative Biomedical Research Program (CBSTP) in partnership with MSU. As a veterinary pathology resident and Ph.D. student, she is interested in how disease pathogenesis translates across species, and in assessing the validity of specific animal models of human disease, particularly cancer immunology. Her research at NIH is centered on the stromal component of the tumor microenvironment (TME), which also includes tumor cells, immune cells, vessels, and other signaling components. Tumor stroma is critical in disease, as it forms both a physical and immunological barrier to chemotherapeutics and immunotherapy. The tumor stroma and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) in particular promote cancer progression and metastasis, leading to resistance to therapy and tumor recurrence. By selectively and locally targeting these tumor-promoting cells in murine models of human breast cancer, Dr. Glabman hopes to find new therapeutic strategies that activate the immune response in cancer patients.
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Chelsie is a Biomedical Engineering Ph.D. student at Michigan State University. She studies what happens to the extracellular matrix of cells after they have been stressed. She co-hosts "The Sci-Files" with Daniel Puentes. Together they explore the different topics that MSU students research on "The Sci-Files" at WDBM.

Daniel is a graduate student in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he does research at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. His research involves measuring the mass of radioactive nuclei, and how it can tell us how protons and neutrons are arranged inside of a nucleus. This research also helps scientists understand how the elements were created in different stellar environments! At WDBM, he and Chelsie Boodoo co-host The Sci-Files.