Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, still, 15% of women affected by breast cancer die each year according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In addition, the number of new cases is increasing every year and, therefore, there is an imperative need to control and mitigate this affection.
For that, novel technologies such as organ-on-a-chip addressed to mimic breast cancer tissues are needed. This will allow us to study how cancer tissue is developed and to better understand the biological, molecular, and physiological mechanisms involved in this disease. Moreover, this organ-on-a-chip approach can help to develop new drugs and elucidate which therapies are more effective on the different cancer organoids (3D self-organized tissues) developed.
In this regard, this project aims to develop a multimodular platform including a (breast cancer ecosystem) BCE-on-a-chip (perfused bioreactor containing an organoid) module connected to a label-free biosensor for continuous monitoring of cell-secreted biomarkers.
In other to enhance the organ-on-a-chip technology, one of the key factors is to be able to monitor hundreds of parameters affecting the tissue construct. For that reason, different characterization and monitoring strategies need to be developed and implemented in the system. One of them is the continuous detection of cell-secreted biomarkers. For that reason, in this project, we are developing a label-free optical biosensor based on R-NPs (resonant nanopillars) for in-line monitoring of the BCE-on-a-chip. There are other label-free sensors performing competitive sensitiveness’ (mirco and nanomolar) able to provide real-time measurements, such as microwave-based resonator devices or SPR. But they depend on complex light coupling which hampers their combination with bioreactors included in an incubator. R-NPs, meet the optical performance to satisfy the real-time monitoring and sensitivity requirements (ng/mL which is in the same order of concentration of target biomarkers such as Interleukin-8. In addition, RNPs multiplexing provides the desired layout for simultaneous biomarker sensing.
Therefore the main objective of this project is to fabricate a multi-modular platform for breast cancer-on-a-chip cell-secreted, monitoring of several biomarkers, by means of RNPs optical biosensors.
The specific objectives are listed below:
1 Implementation of the sensing module for the three biomarkers.
2 Development of the BCE-on a-chip module as well as the corresponding physiological and bubble trapping modules.
3 Microfluidic setup for the connection of the different modules. And platform breadboard.
4 Testing of cancer therapies on the BCE-on-a-chip defined, as well.
On one hand, the platform will allow us to deepen our knowledge of the biomarker’s efficiency in breast cancer monitoring. On the other hand, specific cells from patients can be used for the organoid construct to be studied, and thus patients can receive more accurate treatments. This is called precision medicine and it is considered one of the paradigms of future medicine.
