Glioblastoma is a brain cancer with very poor survival outcomes. Most drugs can't cross the blood-brain barrier, which means that unlike other cancers, there just aren't that many therapies available for brain tumors. But a cutting-edge technology developed at the University of Cincinnati aims to change that.
Researchers are using 3D bioprinting to create artificial blood vessels that can be used to test new custom-tailored drugs and study why glioblastoma is so resilient. "Our goal is to develop models that can be used to get new insights into the mechanism that promotes tumor regeneration and drug resistance , enabling testing of new therapeutics," said Riccardo Barrile, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science. The study was published in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials .
Organs-on-a-chip "Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of primary brain tumor. It's typically lethal," Barrile said. "It's a terrible disease.
" Doctors typically prescribe chemotherapy in combination with surgical removal of the tumors and radiation therapy. But glioblastoma is resilient and typically becomes drug resistant over time, he said. "It's difficult to target these tumors," he said.
"They are strategically infiltrated in healthy parts of brain tissue." The first "organs-on-a-chip" were made less than 20 years ago. It's a field that holds a lot of promise in the field of drug development, but is in its infancy, Barrile said.
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