Tumour-on-a-chip
Small microfluidic devices that grow tumour cells with blood-vessel-like channels and immune cells, letting researchers watch drugs act in a more life-like setting than a dish.
Overview
Tumour-on-a-chip devices culture cancer cells, stromal cells and endothelium in microfluidic channels with flow, gradients and mechanical cues, recreating aspects of the tumour microenvironment such as perfusion, hypoxia and immune cell infiltration. They are used to study metastasis, drug penetration and T-cell or CAR-T killing, and the FDA's acceptance of organ-chip data in place of some animal tests has increased interest. Standardisation, throughput and validation against clinical outcomes remain open problems.
How it works
Cells are seeded into patterned hydrogel channels in a polymer chip, perfused by pumps, and imaged over days to measure growth, invasion and drug response.
- Perfusion and gradients missing from static culture
- Human cells throughout
- Real-time imaging of immune attack
- Low throughput and lab-to-lab variation
- Limited validation against patient outcomes
- Engineering skill required
Latest papers
topQuery for this technology: (TITLE:"Tumour-on-a-chip" OR ABSTRACT:"Tumour-on-a-chip") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about Tumour-on-a-chip, not a curated reading list.
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