Miniaturized pre-clinical cancer models as research and diagnostic tools.

Cancer is one of the most common causes of death worldwide. Consequently, important resources are directed towards bettering treatments and outcomes. Cancer is difficult to treat due to its heterogeneity, plasticity and frequent drug resistance.

Controlled breast cancer microarrays for the deconvolution of cellular multilayering and density effects upon drug responses.

Background: Increasing evidence shows that the cancer microenvironment affects both tumorigenesis and the response of cancer to drug treatment. Therefore in vitro models that selectively reflect characteristics of the in vivo environment are greatly needed. Current methods allow us to screen the effect of extrinsic parameters such as matrix composition and to model the complex and three-dimensional (3D) cancer environment.

Single cell 3-D platform to study ligand mobility in cell-cell contact.

Lateral mobility and dimensionality have both been shown to influence cellular behavior, but have yet to be combined and applied in a single in vitro platform to address, e.g., cell adhesion in a setting mimicking the three-dimensional environment of neighboring cells in a reductionist way.

Engineered 3D environments to elucidate the effect of environmental parameters on drug response in cancer.

Traditional in vitro models used for the development of anti-cancer drugs are based on the monolayer culture of cells, which has a limited predictivity of in vivo efficacy. A number of cell culture platforms have been developed in recent years to improve predictivity and further to elucidate the mechanisms governing the differing responses observed in vitro versus in vivo. One detrimental aspect of current in vitro models is their inability to decouple the effect of different extrinsic factors on the responsiveness of the cells to drug treatment.

Stem cell plasticity, osteogenic differentiation and the third dimension.

Different cues present in the cellular environment control basic biological processes. A previously established 3D microwell array was used to study dimensionality-related effects on osteogenic differentiation and plasticity of marrow stromal cells. To enable long-term culture of single cells in the array a novel surface functionalization technique was developed, using the principle of subtractive micro contact printing of fibronectin and surface passivation with a triblock-copolymer.