The Boire laboratory investigates the leptomeningeal space. The leptomeninges, layers of membranous coverings, encase the central nervous system and contain the circulating cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). In health, the leptomeninges maintain neural homeostasis and provide a route of biochemical communication between the periphery and the central nervous system. In disease, the leptomeningeal space plays host to a variety of pathologies, including autoimmunity, infectious disease, and malignancy.

Cancer cells may spread nearly anywhere in the body. When they enter into and grow within the leptomeningeal space, leptomeningeal metastasis (LM) results. This complication of cancer wreaks havoc with the homeostatic capacities of the CSF leading to neurological disabilities and death. We seek to understand neuroanatomically where and mechanistically how cancer cells become competent to enter into the leptomeninges. Once within the leptomeninges, cancer cells face profound metabolic challenges including low extracellular iron, hypoxia, and low extracellular lipid. We investigate how cancer cells overcome these metabolic constraints so that we may interrupt this signaling and arrest cancer cell growth in the space.

Although classically viewed as a barrier system, a more modern view of the leptomeninges is that of a conduit for biochemical and cellular communication between the systemic circulation and the central nervous system. Immune cells, their mediators, as well as signaling molecules generated from extra-CNS tissues are all detectable within the CSF. We investigate this signaling with the goal of understanding and ultimately interrupting neuro-pathological processes at the whole-organism level. This includes metastasis, autoimmunity, and infection.