Anti metastasis drug screening on a microfluidic device.

Metastasis is a very important factor in cancer, causing 90% of the cancer-related deaths and thus requiring a good method of screening for drugs. However, metastasis still remains a complex issue and requires the problem to be split up into different stages of metastasis. The microfluidic model presented here focuses on the interaction between the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and the endothelial cells, on which the potential drugs can act. To accomplish the goal of having a good model for drug screening, the 3D microenvironment at the metastatic site is an important aspect, since an inaccurate representation can cause potentially good drugs to eventually fail in clinical trials.

A microfluidic model that consists of a representation of the vessel wall which serves as a metastatic site and which closely mimics the micro environment of a blood vessel. By monitoring the behaviour of the CTCs, especially the interaction with the vessel wall a bar can be set for the effectiveness of a drug. Once this has been done the chip has the potential to be used in a high throughput setting.