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Over the past few years, we’ve seen 3D printing technology used to fabricate everything from houses and bridges to limbs and prosthetic organs.
But one might reasonably wonder why the hell someone would want to print a deadly glioblastoma tumor in a lab.
It’s all part of a new project at Tel Aviv University that hopes to speed up research into new drugs and therapies to treat aggressive cancer.
Scientists are better able to mimic the growth rate and behavior of each individual tumor by printing a faithful replica using cell samples from patients with the disease.
Instead of testing drugs on cells in a Petri dish, this method will help them track the tumor response to treatment in an environment that mimics the behavior of cells in our body.
“What we created was a 3D printed model of glioblastoma cancer that contains different types of cells,”
Professor Ronit Satchi-Fainaro, head of the study at the Sackler School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, explained.
“So not only cancer cells, but also other cells that reside in the brain, including the blood vessels that we go through with different drugs and test different drugs on them,” she added.
For the past five years, Satchi-Fainaro has used 3D bio-printers to test the success of different types of cancer drugs and therapies.
She believes that 3D models correctly reflect the elasticity and composition of the brain, which means that in theory the results of tests performed on these models should closely mirror those of clinical trials.
“So the groundbreaking news: we found that inhibiting a small molecule showed similar results in our 3D model and also in patients,” said Lena Neunfeild, a chemical engineer who works in the Satchi lab. Faniaro.
“However, when the cells were grown on 2D cultures, on Petri dishes, we had no effect, highlighting the strength of our platform in predicting the clinical scenario.”
Professor Satchi-Fainaro’s team will soon begin an open trial. This means that they will know the identity of the patient and will be able to compare the lab results directly with the results of the patient.
Importantly, they will be able to see if drug tests on the 3D printed tumor accurately predict how the cancer responds to a drug in the patient’s body.
While the results may still not match, the lab is optimistic about a positive result given the research it has conducted to date.
This is one of the hottest areas of research, cancer research, as well as organ replacement. It’s the same logic. The only difference is that the recreation of organs needs to send them back to the body, ”said Satchi Fainaro.
“We do not intend to return the cancerous tissue to a patient of course, but to use it to exploit and understand the mechanisms that will lead to new targets and new drugs, and also to screen for personalized therapy,” to adapt therapies to the patient ‘.’
To learn more about this story, watch the video in the media player above.
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