Multi-organ-on-chip approach in cancer research

Abstract

Cancer is the second cause of death worldwide after heart disease. Despite the still developing anticancer therapies, the main challenge in cancer research is the establishing the appropriate predictive in vitro tumor model. Standard 2D and the increasingly used 3D cultures, as well as animal models suffer from numerous morphological and physiological differences. Current in vitro models often do not accurately predict toxicity due to non-linear dose-toxicity relationships, unclear mechanisms, non-organ specific toxicity as well as adverse side effects. In contrast, animal models do not always reflect human toxicity due to differences in physiology and interspecies metabolic capacity. In response to these, microfluidic Tumor-on-chip systems and their connections with other Organ-on-chip models (multi-Organ-on-Chip) have become a promising tool in cancer research. This type of tools are able to highly reproduce the dynamic microenvironment of the tumor and other organs. With on-chip approach is possible to observe and understand the mechanism and the changes taking place in metastases. In addition, multi-Organ-on-chip systems enable an assessment of the impact of anti-cancer therapies (outside the human body) directly on cancer, but also on surrounding organs, which brings new hope in personalized medicine.