Tumor-on-a-chip: from bioinspired design to biomedical application.
Xingxing Liu, Jiaru Fang, Shuang Huang, Xiaoxue Wu, Xi Xie, Ji Wang, Fanmao Liu, Meng Zhang, Zhenwei Peng, Ning Hu
Author Information
Xingxing Liu: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Jiaru Fang: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Shuang Huang: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Xiaoxue Wu: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Xi Xie: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China. ORCID
Ji Wang: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Fanmao Liu: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Meng Zhang: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Zhenwei Peng: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China.
Ning Hu: The First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Materials and Technologies, Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Display Material and Technology, School of Electronics and Information Technology, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510006 Guangzhou, China. ORCID
Cancer is one of the leading causes of human death, despite enormous efforts to explore cancer biology and develop anticancer therapies. The main challenges in cancer research are establishing an efficient tumor microenvironment in vitro and exploring efficient means for screening anticancer drugs to reveal the nature of cancer and develop treatments. The tumor microenvironment possesses human-specific biophysical and biochemical factors that are difficult to recapitulate in conventional in vitro planar cell models and in vivo animal models. Therefore, model limitations have hindered the translation of basic research findings to clinical applications. In this review, we introduce the recent progress in tumor-on-a-chip devices for cancer biology research, medicine assessment, and biomedical applications in detail. The emerging tumor-on-a-chip platforms integrating 3D cell culture, microfluidic technology, and tissue engineering have successfully mimicked the pivotal structural and functional characteristics of the in vivo tumor microenvironment. The recent advances in tumor-on-a-chip platforms for cancer biology studies and biomedical applications are detailed and analyzed in this review. This review should be valuable for further understanding the mechanisms of the tumor evolution process, screening anticancer drugs, and developing cancer therapies, and it addresses the challenges and potential opportunities in predicting drug screening and cancer treatment.
