Join us for the next event in our Institute's spring 2024 Speaker Series featuring Dr. Younghye Song, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas. 

This event is sponsored by the Institute for Integrative and Innovative Research (I³R).

To join via zoom remotely:

Please click the link below to join the webinar: https://uark.zoom.us/j/81908928483?pwd=Sx5Grm1fY6zz330J1fXVCBRUfCfrZT.1

Summary: Despite decades of extensive research into cancer and well-established knowledge of the crucial role of the tumor microenvironment, this disease still remains a leading cause of death worldwide. Recently, cancer-nerve crosstalk in non-neural solid tumor progression has increasingly gained attention as emerging evidence of cancer aggravation. Current understanding of cancer-nerve crosstalk includes 1) tumor innervation, in which nerve fibers infiltrate solid tumors, and 2) perineural invasion, in which cancer cells invade adjacent nerves and use them as an additional route to metastasis. While numerous studies have shown the evidence of cancer-nerve crosstalk in patient samples and some understanding of potential mechanisms at molecular, cellular and tissue-levels are beginning to emerge, much remains unknown about this under-appreciated yet potentially critical feature of cancer progression. Tissue-engineered in vitro, preclinical models allow mechanistic investigation of cell-cell and cell-extracellular matrix signaling in a biomimetic platform. This seminar presents our ongoing efforts to understand cancer-nerve crosstalk, specifically breast tumor innervation and pancreatic cancer perineural invasion, using tissue engineered models of the tumor microenvironment. Our results highlight that several key hallmarks of cancer may play a pivotal role in promoting cancer-nerve crosstalk and warrant continued investigation.

Bio: Dr. Younghye Song is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arkansas and a Project Leader of the newly established Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University. Prior to her current tenure-track position, she completed her postdoctoral training in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Florida.

Dr. Song’s research interests lie in understanding the interactions between cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix to identify novel mechanisms and therapeutic targets of diseases and injuries. Her lab, named Therapeutic Testbed Engineering Laboratory, seeks to accomplish these goals using tissue-engineered pre-clinical testbeds. Dr. Song is a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Society for Biomaterials, and American Association for Cancer Research. She received 2023 Dean’s Excellence Rising Star Research Award, Outstanding Researcher in Biomedical Engineering, and Outstanding Teacher in Biomedical Engineering Awards from the University of Arkansas. She is an Early Career Editorial Board Member of ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering and a Review Editor of Frontiers in Medical Technology. She helped establish the Arkansas Integrative Metabolic Research Center at the University of Arkansas with a $10.8M P20 COBRE funding as a project leader. Recently, she received a $2.5M R37 MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute to study the role of metabolic dysregulation in breast tumor innervation.