Led by UCI professor of molecular biology & biochemistry Christopher C.W. Hughes, the research team successfully established multiple vascularized micro-organs on an industry-standard 96-well plate.

Hughes and the study's first author, Duc T. T. Phan, showed that these miniature tissues are much better at reproducing human drug responses than previous model systems.

The full study can be found online in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Lab on a Chip.

In the paper they write "There is a growing awareness that complex 3-dimensional (3D) organs are not well represented by monolayers of a single cell type – the standard format for many drug screens."

"We describe an arrayed version of the platform that incorporates multiple vascularized micro-organs (VMOs) on a 96-well plate. Each VMO is independently-addressable and flow through the micro-organ is driven by hydrostatic pressure. The platform is easy to use, requires no external pumps or valves, and is highly reproducible."

Hughes and his group have shown how the flow of a blood substitute through the vascular network they created can deliver nutrients to multiple kinds of tissues, including heart, pancreas, brain and various tumours.

"This is truly a unique platform - we have recreated in a dish the key element common to all tissues, which is that they depend on blood vessels for their survival. This feature is missing in all previously described in vitro organ cultures," Hughes said.

Hughes' team was also able to establish a functional vascularised microtumour (VMT) within the 96-well plate system and demonstrated its potential for anti-cancer drug screening.

Working with a panel of FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs and a human colon cancer, they found that the VMT platform could accurately identify drugs that target the tumour cells, the vessels that supply them, or both.

"This is a major breakthrough", continued Dr. Hughes, "For the first time we can identify in the same assay drugs that target both tumour cells and the vessels that feed them."

Source: University of California - Irvine