Dr Vadim Jucaud's lab at the Terasaki Institute has developed a human vascularised liver cancer-on-a-chip model to evaluate vessel remodelling and cell death in response to embolic agents. This novel platform reflects the microenvironment of liver tumours, particularly a functional and perfusable microvasculature that can be embolised.

This powerful in vitro tool aligns with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) efforts to reduce animal testing and promote alternative methods, including microfluidic devices that mimic human organs.

Embolic treatment for liver cancer is a minimally invasive therapy delivered through a catheter into the hepatic artery to block tumours' blood supply and starve them of oxygen and nutrients. This approach can be combined with chemotherapy or radioactive beads to enhance its effect. However, the development of novel embolic agents is often optimised in animal models, which differ significantly from humans at the cellular, tissue, and organ levels.

 “A vascularized cancer-on-a-chip offers a human-relevant, ethically sound alternative to animal testing, aligning with the growing push for non-animal technologies in preclinical drug development," said Dr. Vadim Jucaud, Principal Investigator.

To bridge this gap, Dr. Jucaud's lab developed a vascularised embolisation-on-a-chip model that replicates the microvascular networks of liver cancer. This platform incorporates a tumour spheroid surrounded by perfusable capillary-mimicking blood vessels in a microfluidic organ-on-a-chip system.

To mimic the embolisation of the hepatic artery, the inflow of perfusable microvasculatures can be occluded with embolic agents loaded via a catheter. The efficacy of embolic agents is easily measured through the quantification of tumour cell death, vessel regression, cytokine release profile, and cell-surface marker identification.

"By integrating functional blood vessels into a liver cancer-on-a-chip system, we can replicate the unique vascular dynamics that drive hepatocellular carcinoma growth and response to embolic therapies, something traditional cell cultures and animal models cannot achieve," said Dr. Huu Tuan Nguyen, first author of the publication.

"This platform allows us to deliver embolic agents directly into microengineered tumour vessels, closely mimicking the clinical procedure and providing unprecedented insight into how tumours respond at the cellular and tissue level," said Dr. Vadim Jucaud.

"Beyond therapy testing, the vascularised model provides a powerful tool to study how embolisation alters tumour hypoxia, immune infiltration, and angiogenic signalling, all of which are critical to advancing precision oncology."

This innovative model provides insight into embolisation dynamics and opens the door to next-generation embolic agents, potentially accelerating translation of discoveries into clinical treatments for liver cancer.

Article: Embolization-on-a-chip: Novel Vascularized Liver Tumor Model for Evaluation of Cellular and Cytokine Response to Embolic Agents

Source: Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation