Improved cancer diagnostics and drug development

Purpose and goal

The aim of the project was to develop a new diagnostic and treatment predictive test based on the patient´s own tumor tissue (scaffolds) and 3D-printed artificial scaffolds for industrial screening in the developing of new drug candidates. We have conducted clinical validation on patient material from several cancers form that confirm its usefulness as a predictive tool. The 3D-printed scaffolds have also shown that cells grown in these gain characteristics that is more similar to the human situation than classical cell cultures.

Expected results and effects

We have been able to verify the usability in our systems. The human scaffolds, which are populated with cancer cell lines and then characterized with respect to the influence of the tumor microenvironment, can be used for predictive tumor relapse as well as treatment screening. The 3D-printed scaffolds provide a growth environment that gives the cells a characteristic that better mimics the human situation compared with traditional cell cultures and can be a usefully tool in screening of new drug candidates.

Planned approach and implementation

For human tumor scaffolds, from fresh and biobanked tissue, we have analyzed tumors from over 500 patients divided on more than 2000 scaffolds on which we have performed approximately 70,000 gene expression analysis with selected marker genes. The results provide a cell characteristic that reflects the micro-environment´s influence on the cells for use as a clinical diagnostic and treatment predictive tool. For 3D printed scaffolds, corresponding analysis have been made on over 400 printed scaffolds for use as a better screening tool than traditional cell cultures.