Interstitium-on-a-chip to explore its role in cancer metastasis

Descripción del proyecto

Un dispositivo biomimético para estudiar la metástasis

La metástasis es uno de los sellos distintivos del cáncer y se caracteriza por la migración de células tumorales a lugares alejados a través del sistema circulatorio y linfático. El principal objetivo del proyecto ICE-METs, financiado con fondos europeos, es desarrollar una plataforma de microfluídica capaz de observar la migración y proliferación de células tumorales durante la metástasis. El dispositivo se está diseñando con materiales biomiméticos y podría utilizarse para el cribaje y para el desarrollo de fármacos de quimioterapia eficaces, lo cual sería un gran avance para los pacientes y la sociedad en general.

Objetivo

The annual number of metastatic cancer deaths and the cost of cancer treatment makes cancer research a priority for the European Union. One of the key factors in metastatic cancer is the ability of the cancer cells to migrate from a primary tumor to the blood vessels and lymphatics. A better understanding of how cancer cells interact with the microenvironment and migrate from blood vessels to the lymphatics to create distant metastases, is key for discovering efficient chemotherapy drugs that will cover the growing needs of the worldwide population. The possibility of developing biomimetic engineered devices to understand metastasis proliferation and testing of drugs is a crucial goal for the research community, both in science and medicine, translating to major benefits for future patients. Therefore, the goal of the ICE-METs project is to deliver, a novel engineered microfluidic biomimetic platform to monitor the migration and proliferation of cancer cells in metastasis.