The tumor microenvironment is the target for our discovery of cancer therapeutics. Theramix develops strategies to kill cancer cells by disrupting their interactions between host cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix instead of directly targeting the cancer cells. The multiple types of stromal cells and the complexity of the molecular components of the tumor stroma present tremendous opportunity yet huge challenges for the development of therapy targeting the tumor microenvironment.
The ideal tool for identification of targets in the tumor microenvironment is in vivo imaging. We focus on the development of techniques to image the extracellular cytokines and enzymes for screening the therapeutic targets. We select the drug targets with the most significant alterations in the tumor microenvironment according to the imaging data. Our therapeutics is build on manipulation of the abnormal elements in the microenvironment to revert the malignant tissues to normal.
