Culturing tumours in 3D assists cancer drug development

Researchers in the US have reported that 3D scaffolds used to culture Ewing’s sarcoma cells were effective at mimicking the environment in which such tumours develop.

‘The scaffolds better recapitulate the microenvironment in which tumours grow, as compared with two-dimensional plastic surfaces typically used in cancer research to test anti-cancer drugs,’ said Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos, who led the research team with Joseph Ludwig, an assistant professor and sarcoma medical oncologist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

‘We’ve been working to investigate how we can leverage our expertise in engineering normal tissues to cancerous tissues, which can potentially serve as a better predictor of anti-cancer drug response than standard drug-testing platforms,’ Mikos said in a statement.

By growing cancer cells within a three-dimensional scaffold rather than on flat surfaces, the team of researchers found that the cells bore closer morphological and biochemical resemblance to tumours in the body.

Additionally, engineering tumours that mimic those in vivo offers opportunities to more accurately evaluate such strategies as chemotherapy or radiation therapies, he said.