Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have added a fresh study in field of cancer research.
Researchers 3D bioprinted breast cancer tumours and treated them in a new study to better understand a condition that is one of the leading causes of mortality globally.
According to research done at the Ozbolat lab, the success creates the foundation for accurately fabricating tumour models. The discovery will enable future research and development of anticancer therapies without the need for “in vivo” (on animals) testing.
Ibrahim Ozbolat, a professor of engineering science and mechanics, biomedical engineering, and neurosurgery at Penn State and the study’s senior author, said, “This will help us understand how human immune cells interact with solid tumours.”
“We’ve created a tool that functions as a clinical test platform to accurately and safely evaluate novel medicines. It serves as a platform for research for immunologists & biologists to learn more about the growth of the tumour, how its interactions with human cells, and how its metastasizes & spreads in body.”
A new technique
Aspiration-assisted bioprinting, a relatively new approach, was used by the researchers to precisely localise tumours in 3D & produce the tissue.
The researchers discovered that chemotherapy and cell-based immunotherapeutics had an impact on the tumour after building a multi-scale vascularized breast tumour model out of the tissue.
The accuracy of the tumour model was first validated by the researchers using doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic drug based on an anthracycline that is often used to treat breast cancer.
As soon as they realised the bioprinted tumour responded to chemotherapy, the researchers collaborated with Dr. Derya Unutmaz, an immunologist at Jackson Laboratory, to examine a cell-based immunotherapeutic treatment on the tumour.
They used human CAR-T cells
The researchers used human CAR-T cells that had undergone gene editing to identify & combat aggressive subtype of breast cancer cells.
After the modified CAR-T cells circulated within the tumour for 72 hours, the researchers found that the cells within the bioprinted tumour had elicited a positive immune response and were warding-off cancer cells.
Although we construct our model using human cells, Ozbolat noted that it is a greatly simplified representation of the actual body.
“There are many details in the native microenvironment that we cannot replicate or even consider replicating. Our goal is simplicity in complexity. We want to have a basic understanding of how these systems work and we need to optimize the growth process because we don’t have time to wait for tumors to grow at their natural rate.”
The tumours that were removed from actual breast cancer patients are currently being used by Ozbolat and his colleagues in their research.
The National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation, the H.G. Barsumian, M.D. Memorial Fund, TUBITAK, and others also support for the study.
The articles were published in Advanced Functional Materials and Biofabrication.
