Modelling Cancer Metastasis on a Chip for Therapeutic Discovery

Metastasis is the leading cause of death in cancer patients, and is
difficult to treat. Metastasis involves complex biological and physical
interactions between cancer cells and their microenvironment. Our
understanding of events leading to metastasis is limited by the significant
gap between currently available in vitro models (e.g. lack of tumour
heterogeneity and microenvironmental interactions) and in vivo models
(genetic differences between mice and humans, low throughput). This
together hampers the development of drugs to target steps of metastasis.
This PhD project proposes to develop a novel bioengineered microfluidic
culture system, which combines simulated cancer heterogeneity with
microenvironmental complexity. This will increase our understanding of
critical steps of the metastatic cascade, and provide a prototype
preclinical assay system with greater predictive power for drug development.