In vitro models of human solid tumors for microchip-based efficacy-testing of drug- and immunotherapy

Several solid cancers have proven hard to treat, with no significant improvement in the last decades.

This is partly due to a lack of accurate models for studying pathogenesis and sensibility to chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

Despite being expensive, inefficient and poorly reflecting some human cancers, animal models are still used to a large extent. Establishment of accurate and reliable in vitro methods could decrease the number of animals used.

The goal of this project is to make patient-derived tumor spheroids, that maintain important features of the tumor microenvironment, for in vitro efficacy testing of drug and immunotherapy.

To achieve this, we will mix tumor, stromal and regulatory immune cells together with extracellular matrix components in a microwell chip designed for tumor spheroid culture, imaging-based characterization and multiplexed high-content screening. The project is built upon established multidisciplinary collaboration with direct clinical connection.

We use sarcoma and ovarian cancer as model systems but the method can be generalized to other solid tumors and thereby spearhead a broader shift of focus away from animal models.

We believe that this method can replace current animal model systems that poorly represent the human disease, and reduce the number of animals used where current animal model systems are justified, by providing a platform for optimization before moving on to do the final experiments in animals.