The latest issue of the online edition of the Journal of Internal Medicine makes a comprehensive review on angiogenesis, metabolism and cancer. Researchers of the tumor angiogenesis research group Oriol Casanovas and Lidia Moserle, have participated with an article on anti-angiogenesis and metastasis chosen as the cover illustration.

The drawing made by the researcher Lidia Moserle illustrates the consequences of anti-angiogenic therapy, which attacks the blood vessels around a tumor cell and the surrounding environment, the stroma. Both the article and illustration are intended to show the importance “the relationship between tumor cells and stroma in response to therapy” explained Moserle. “In fact,” she says, “blood vessels are stroma.”

Titled “Anti-angiogenesis and metastasis: a tumor and stromal cell alliance”, Casanovas and Moserle perform a comprehensive review on the resistance of tumor and stromal cells to antiangiogenic therapies and conclude with a reflection on the future of these therapies: “Until now the therapeutic strategies have targeted tumor cells, as we begin to understand the importance of the stroma, we must think of new therapies that also act on the tumor environment or the interaction between tumor cells and their environment .”