Cancer-on-a-chip: Modeling Colorectal Cancer Progression

Cancer-on-a-chip: Modeling Colorectal Cancer Progression

Webinar Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide with over 900,000 people dying from the disease each year (Siegel et al., 2021). In the United States, the 5-year survival rate for patients with metastatic CRC is less than 15% (Siegel et al., 2020). To address this dismal outcome, there is an urgent need to better understand and ultimately control aspects of cancer progression.  

In a recent paper published in iScience, researchers from the Lawrence J Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine describe an in vitro Organ-Chip model that emulates in vivo tissue structure and the tumor microenvironment (TME) to better understand intravasation, an early step in metastasis.  

In this on-demand webinar, Dr. Mumenthaler discusses recent advancements made through combining Organ-Chip models with high content imaging and mass spectrometry-based metabolomics to improve our understanding of ​microenvironmental contributions to colorectal cancer progression. 

 Study results that will be discussed:  

  • Development and characterization of CRC-on-chip 
  • Metabolic comparison of Intestine Chips versus CRC chips 
  • Examination of tumor cell intravasation 
  • CRC cells exhibit phenotypic heterogeneity during intravasation 
  • Mechanical and biochemical cues from the TME impact CRC invasion