Developing a perfusion culture bioreactor and 3D culture techniques to more accurately model cancer metastasis and tumour cell behaviour in vitro.

Current 2D cell culture techniques poorly represent the native cellular environment of tumours cells whose conditions are known to influence a range of cellular behaviours including survival, metabolism and protein expression. As a consequence, culturing cells in this simplistic system may compromise the behavioural fidelity of responses achieved in vitro. With the aim of better recapitulating the conditions present in this locale, developing 3D culture systems and a perfusion bioreactor for cell culture experiments may garner cell responses that more accurately replicate and predict those in vivo.
3D cultures allow cells to grow within a more natural 3D framework and enable researchers to establish concentration gradients across the growth environment, better mimicking the heterogeneity of local cellular conditions experienced in vivo. Moreover, a perfusion bioreactor would allow in vitro experiments to investigate the impact of blood flow, particular in modelling the metastatic capabilities of tumour cells migrating and subsequently invading secondary sites. Together, these would provide a powerful platform to investigate tumour cell behaviour and obtain results with greater relevance to in vivo models.