This is not the first time that researchers try to demonstrate the efficiency of 3D Printing in brain diseases. MIT & Harvard have already showed how it was possible to 3D Print human brain, as part of a research.
Today, researchers from the College of Engineering at Northeastern explore the use of 3D printing in the treatment for Glioblastoma, a disease known as the deadliest form of brain tumor. The entire research is published in Science Advances, and aims to give medical professionals a better understanding of the tumor and explore new solutions for the development of new drugs to fight it. Jenny Zou, a neurosurgeon, and Roland Friedel, a neuroscientist, at Mount Sinai’s medical school took part in this experimentation.
The key of such research is to study a living brain as it is possible to directly observe how tumor cells grow and respond to treatment. The only thing is that, such research on human is not allowed.
To be able to study glioblastoma more directly, Guohao Dai, an associate professor of bioengineering at Northeastern, leverages the capabilities of their lab which specializes in 3D printing live tissue. They grew a 3D model to act as brain tissue for tumor cells to infiltrate.
“We use human brain blood vessel cells, and connect them with all the neurons, pericytes, astrocytes, the major cell types in the human brain,” Dai says. A water-based substance known as a hydrogel serves as a matrix to hold these cells in place. “Then we use 3D printing to stack them in three-dimensional fashion.”
In the middle of the structure, which is only a few millimeters thick, the researchers place glioblastoma tumor stem cells. The cells are derived from brain tumor patients.
To get an accurate picture of what’s happening inside the 3D model without disrupting it, Xavier Intes, a biomedical engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, used a laser to scan the sample and quickly create a three-dimensional snapshot of the cellular structure, an imaging technique developed in his lab.
This combination of techniques allowed them to evaluate the effectiveness of a commonly used chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
“We treated the tumor with the same kind of drug you give to a patient when they undergo chemotherapy,” Dai says. “We monitored this chemotherapy over two months. And what we found was the chemotherapy was not able to kill the tumor.”
Initially, the tumor shrank in response to the drugs, but then it grew back swiftly and aggressively. The drug did not work in the long term, which lines up with the experience of patients with glioblastoma.
“This particular chemotherapy is not effective for the brain tumor,” Dai says. “We need to develop and screen other chemotherapy drugs.”
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