New microdevice enables culture of circulating tumor cells for cancer diagnosis, treatment
A research collaboration between the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston has created a microfluidic device that can harvest rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood to enable their expansion in culture for analysis. These cells, which have detached from a primary cancer site and often create a secondaryor metastasizedtumor, hold an extraordinary amount of information regarding patient-specific drug sensitivity, cancer progression, and patient response to therapy. Such information could help clinicians treat patients, but it has not been easily accessed due to the difficulty of isolating CTCs and expanding them in culture for subsequent analysis. In alleviating this problem, the new technology has the potential to become a valuable tool for cancer diagnosis and personalized treatment. The research findings appear online in the journal Lab on a Chip.