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Biomaterials offer cancer research the third dimension

Nature Materials volume 9, pages 90–93 (2010)Cite this article

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To deepen understanding and hasten the development of treatments, cancer needs to be modelled more accurately in vitro; applying tissue-engineering concepts and approaches in this field could bridge the gap between two-dimensional studies and in vivo animal models.

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Figure 1: Graphical illustration of how technology platforms originally developed for tissue-engineering applications produce valuable models that mimic 3D tissue organization and function by replicating physiological and pathological conditions of cancer as close as possible.
Figure 2: Comparison of a synthetic PEG-based platform (a) with a hydrogel made of rat collagen I (b) in the formation of spheroid structures by culturing prostate-cancer cells (LNCaP).
Figure 3: The author's interdisciplinary group is at present creating an 'all human' model in which tissue-engineered human bone is transplanted into immunodeficient (NOD/SCID) mice and compared to the standard bone-chip model to study bone metastases related to prostate and breast cancer.

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Acknowledgements

D. W. H. thanks his Post Docs and PhD students S. Rizzi, S. Sieh, V. Reichert, P. Hesami and S. Siamadezh, and the Prostate Cancer Foundation Australia for supporting his research.

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  1. Dietmar W. Hutmacher is at the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, 60 Musk Avenue, Kelvin Grove Queensland 4059, Australia. dietmar.hutmacher@qut.edu.au,

    Dietmar W. Hutmacher

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Hutmacher, D. Biomaterials offer cancer research the third dimension. Nature Mater 9, 90–93 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2619

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