Invited Talk

Partial EMT versus unjamming, and their relevance for metastatic competence

Northeastern University, College of Engineering, 360 Huntington Ave Boston, MA 02115, USA

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Cells in a primary tumor can transition from sessile to motile as the first step in the metastatic cascade. In recent years, it has become clear that this transition can take place either via unjamming or via a phenotypic change known as the epithelial mesenchymal transformation (EMT). This talk will focus on the difference between these two paths and why it appears, both from a theoretical perspective and from recent in vivo experiments, that (partial) EMT is the most critical route to metastatic growth.