Patient-specific 'blood–brain tumor barrier chip' predicts how glioblastoma patients will respond to treatment
During cancer treatment, the same brain tumor can be treated with the same anticancer drug, but the effect can differ from patient to patient. A Korean research team has developed a chip that recreates a patient's own tumor cells together with the surrounding peritumoral vascular environment, making it possible to predict patient-specific treatment responses in advance.
A Korean research team has developed a patient-specific blood-brain tumor barrier (BBTB) chip that predicts how glioblastoma patients will respond to treatment. This breakthrough could help to personalize treatment plans and select the most effective drugs for individual patients. Glioblastoma is a highly lethal brain tumor that is difficult to treat due to its rapid spread into normal brain tissue and variable characteristics among patients.
The brain is protected by a blood-brain barrier, which blocks harmful substances, including anticancer drugs, from reaching the tumor. The vascular barrier surrounding the tumor also changes as the tumor develops, further complicating treatment response prediction. The team, led by Professor Song Ih Ahn from KAIST, developed a chip that incorporates the patient's own tumor cells, vascular barrier, and surrounding brain cells.
This chip recreates the tumor's microenvironment, including the blood-brain tumor barrier, allowing researchers to study how different treatments affect the tumor in a patient-specific manner. When tested on three glioblastoma patients, the chip showed that even patients with similar genetic markers could have different drug responses based on the state of their vascular barrier.
The chip's results closely matched the patients' actual clinical outcomes, indicating its potential as a predictive tool for treatment response. The researchers hope to validate the chip's performance in a larger group of patients and use it to screen new drug candidates and develop personalized treatment strategies.
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