Plans afoot to grow complex 3D human tumour microenvironment in the lab

A project is in the pipeline to grow a complex 3D tumour microenvironment in vitro.

A project has been awarded 2.43 million euros for the development of the first complex three-dimensional human 'tumour microenvironment' in the laboratory.
The funding was provided by the European Research Council to Queen Mary, University of London, in an effort to revolutionise the field of cancer cell research through bioengineering methods.
It is hoped that the creation of such tumour microenvironments will replace inadequate techniques where human cancer cells are grown in isolation on plastic surfaces.
Dubbed the CANBUILD project, it might also pave the way for better testing of new drugs that target the human tumour microenvironment.
The multi-disciplinary team involved in the study will make the most of the latest advances in tissue engineering, biomechanics, imaging and stem cell biology in the hopes of engineering a 3D human tumour in which the different cell types of the microenvironment will communicate, evolve and grow in vitro.
"Growing an in vitro model which contains all these types of cells will allow us to watch how the cells communicate and how the tumour grows, teaching us more about what is going on in this complex system and hopefully giving us a model we can test new drugs on," said Professor Fran Balkwill.