Cell adhesion is central not only to normal cell function but to cancer metastasis as well. The extracellular matrix exerts strong selective pressures on genetically unstable neoplastic cells. The existence of these selective pressures is manifested by tumor cell invasion through the underlying stroma, a process that defines cancer. Our laboratory studies the mechanisms by which normal cell adhesion-induced signaling and regulation is usurped in gastrointestinal cancer.

The Kuwada research group is located on the 3rd floor of HCI, and, is part of the Experimental Diagnostics and Therapeutics and Gastrointestinal Cancer Groups of the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the Department of Medicine.