Imola Wilhelm Receives the 2026 Straub Plaque

Imola Wilhelm and her colleagues aim to uncover the communication pathways between tumour cells and brain cells, as well as the mechanisms by which tumour cells effectively exploit the neurovascular unit—a group of cells that plays a crucial role in maintaining the internal balance of the central nervous system—to support their growth.

Their research has demonstrated that endothelial cells lining the capillaries are capable of sequestering tumour cells from the bloodstream even before they cross the vessel wall. The team was also the first to report that pericytes, cells embedded in the walls of cerebral microvessels, produce a specific growth factor that promotes the proliferation of breast cancer cells in the brain. In addition, astrocytes—the brain’s support cells, which connect to capillaries through specialised endfeet—trigger inflammatory processes that contribute to tumour growth. Drugs targeting this latter mechanism are already being developed for other diseases, and the research group has successfully halted the brain metastatic process in animal models using similar compounds.

Current research by Imola Wilhelm and her team focuses on the communication between pericytes and metastatic tumour cells, as well as on the effects of extracellular vesicles released by tumour cells—lipid membrane-bound structures that play a key role in cell-to-cell communication—on the blood–brain barrier.