Angiogenesis is a complex process that is required for development and tissue regeneration and it may be affected by many pathological conditions. Chemicals and drugs can impact formation and maintenance of the vascular networks; these effects may be both desirable (e.g., anti-cancer drugs) or unwanted (e.g., side effects of drugs). A number of in vivo …
Every year, cancer claims millions of lives around the globe. Unfortunately, model systems that accurately mimic human oncology – a requirement for the development of more effective therapies for these patients – remain elusive. Tumor development is an organ-specific process that involves modification of existing tissue features, recruitment of other cell types, and eventual metastasis …
Tumor-on-chip modeling of organ-specific cancer and metastasis Read More »
Around 95% of anti-cancer drugs that show promise during preclinical study fail to gain FDA-approval for clinical use. This failure of the preclinical pipeline highlights the need for improved, physiologically-relevant in vitro models that can better serve as reliable drug-screening and disease modeling tools. The vascularized micro-tumor (VMT) is a novel three-dimensional model system (tumor-on-a-chip) that recapitulates …
Most cancer treatment strategies target cell proliferation, angiogenesis, migration, and intravasation of tumor cells in an attempt to limit tumor growth and metastasis. An in vitro platform to assess tumor progression and drug sensitivity could provide avenues to enhance our understanding of tumor metastasis as well as precision medicine. We present a microfluidic platform that …
Over the past six decades the inflation-adjusted cost to bring a new drug to market has been increasing constantly and doubles every 9 years – now reaching in excess of $2.5 billion. Overall, the likelihood of FDA approval for a drug (any disease indication) that has entered phase I clinical trials is a mere 9.6%, …
There is a growing interest in developing microphysiological systems that can be used to model both normal and pathological human organs in vitro. This “organs-on-chips” approach aims to capture key structural and physiological characteristics of the target tissue. Here we describe in vitro vascularized microtumors (VMTs). This “tumor-on-a-chip” platform incorporates human tumor and stromal cells …
3D microtumors in vitro supported by perfused vascular networks Read More »
Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality around the world. Despite some success, traditional anticancer drugs developed to reduce tumor growth face important limitations primarily due to undesirable bone marrow and cardiovascular toxicity. Many drugs fail in clinical development after showing promise in preclinical trials, suggesting that the available in vitro …
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