In this new study, researchers developed a new 3D bioprinting platform with high content light microscopy imaging and processing. Using a mixture of bioinks and colorectal (bowel) cancer cells, the team show they were able to replicate tumours in 3D spheroids.
To investigate how the tumours might respond to drugs, dose-response profiles were generated from the spheroids which had been treated separately with chemotherapy drugs oxaliplatin (OX), fluorouracil (5FU), and radiotherapy. The spheroids were then imaged over time. Results from their experiment showed oxaliplatin was significantly less effective against tumour spheroids than in current 2D monolayer culture structures, when compared to fluorouracil.
Read the full University of Bristol news item
Paper: A rapid high throughput bioprinted colorectal cancer spheroid platform for in vitro drug- and radiation-response by Adam W. Perriman et al. in Biofabrication