What if defeating cancer meant more than understanding genetics? What if the key to unlocking a cure also lay in the physical forces surrounding a tumor? First-year ULSOM student, Charles Froman-Glover, is helping to answer those questions and is already making waves in the field of cancer bioengineering.

Driven by a passion for personalized medicine, Charles believes the future of cancer treatment lies in treatments precisely tailored to each individual’s unique biology and tumor environment. This is no small feat. “Once you remove cancer from its biological home, it doesn’t behave the same way,” he explains. “That’s why designing a biomimetic environment – something that mimics the natural home of cancer – is so critical to advancing personalized medicine.”

Chares has spent the past several years conducting research that challenges conventional thinking. His recent research, completed alongside an interdisciplinary team led by Dr. Joseph Chen and supported by UofL’s bioengineering and neurosurgery departments, explores how physical forces like squeezing and pressure within tumors can make cancer more aggressive and harder to treat. Under pressure, cancer cells activate genes that are normally silent in healthy tissue, unlocking dormant programs that promote survival, invasion, and therapy resistance. This mechanical reprogramming helps explain how cancer adapts so quickly and aggressively and highlights a new layer of complexity beyond genetic mutations alone.

Growing tumors create dense, hostile environments around them, which fuels their spread and makes it even harder for immune cells and therapies to reach them, suggesting that changing the environment around tumors could potentially be a method for fighting cancer.

“Mechanical reprogramming helps explain why cancer adapts so quickly,” Charles says. “Understanding how tumors respond to pressure gives us a better shot at predicting treatment outcomes and designing more effective therapies.” A

Now, his efforts have culminated in a major milestone: the publication of his first systematic review in conjunction with UofL bioengineering and neurosurgery departments – a significant accomplishment for any researcher, let alone a first-year medical student.

Charles credits his team and mentors with shaping his vision. “Over the past few years, I have been lucky enough to work with Dr. Chen and an interdisciplinary team of neurosurgery faculty to figure out how to bring new technologies to patients with incurable diseases such as glioblastoma,” Charles shared. “I am planning on applying for the MD/PhD program after my M2 year so that I can spend the proper amount of time pursuing hypothesis-driven training in bioengineering, something that I realized my passion for during my undergraduate career.”

As we recognize National Cancer Research Month here at ULSOM, Charles’s story is a reminder of the innovation and determination that drives our community forward. At the ULSOM, our students, faculty, and researchers are advancing new frontiers in cancer care every day bringing us closer to a world without cancer.

To learn more about the innovative cancer research at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, click here.