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13 February, 2024IV Prize for Scientific Research in Health, promoted by the hna Foundation
13 February, 2024This technology makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs in biological models that represent on a microscale the conditions under which a tumor develops in the human body.
Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive brain cancer
The results of the research, carried out in Lleida and Zaragoza, highlight a preferential effect on the cells in the center of the tumor
Research carried out in Lleida and Zaragoza has validated the use of Organ-on-chip (OOC) technology to examine the effect of an antitumor drug (NNC-55-0396, a tetralol compound) against glioblastoma, the brain cancer more frequent and aggressive.
The research was recently published in the journal Cell death and disease and has been carried out by the Calcium Cellular Signaling research group of the Lleida Biomedical Research Institute (IRBLleida) and the University of Lleida (UdL), in collaboration with the Tissue Microenvironment Laboratory (TMELab) from the Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), from the Network Biomedical Research Center in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN) and the Engineering Research Institute of Aragon (I3A) of the University of Zaragoza.
The research has benefited from the experience of the TMELab group of the I3A Unizar, directed by Iñaki Ochoa, who works on the development of experimental models based on microfluidic systems to understand the interaction of cells with their environment. “This technology allows us to simulate in the laboratory the environmental conditions of tissues, healthy and pathological, in a way that is more similar to what happens in patients. Thanks to this, the researcher can have a powerful tool to predict the pathophysiological responses of the tumor in the laboratory,” commented Sara Oliván, the principal investigator of this project from the University of Zaragoza.
«This technology is interesting because it allows evaluate the efficacy of drugs in biological models "that represent on a microscale the conditions under which a tumor develops in the human body," explained one of the leaders of the Cellular Signaling by Calcium research group, Judit Herreros.
«Glioblastomas are very aggressive brain tumors, made up of at least two different regions.": a region where tumor cells receive abundant nutrients and oxygen because they are highly irrigated by blood vessels, while a central area lacking vessels, where the cells have adapted to living in a hostile environment and lacking oxygen," he added. the researcher and professor at the UdL.
"The glioblastoma-on-a-chip It consists of a small chamber where the glioblastoma cells are arranged reproducing these two regions. In this way, they are optimal models to study the effect of chemotherapy drugs, a fact that reduces the need for preclinical studies in animals," defined the first authors of the article, the researcher at the IIS Aragón and the I3A Unizar, Clara Bayona, and the researcher from IRBLleida and the UdL, Lía Alza.
"The The results of this study demonstrate that the drug NNC-55-0396 has a predominant effect in the hypoxic region of the tumor, the cells in the center of the tumor.. These results complete previous results of the group where the mechanism of action of the drug was described, which activates cellular stress pathways that lead to the death of the tumor cell in culture,' explained the other person in charge of the Cellular Signaling by Calcium group, Carles Cantí. "This current work brings us closer to what the drug could do in vivo," added the researcher and professor at the UdL.
This research has been possible thanks to funding from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program of the European Union, a MINECO grant from the Ministry of Economy, Commerce and Business, the European Regional Development Fund and the Retos program of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, the Fundació la Marató de TV3, a FI-AGAUR scholarship and the Government of Aragón.

Source: University of Zaragoza