October 20
@
12:00 PM
–
1:00 PM
Engineering Tumor Microenvironments on a Chip to Model Early Events in Breast and Ovarian Cancer Metastasis
Susan Leggett, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of Bioengineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Abstract:
The tumor microenvironment is a dynamic and multifaceted ecosystem in which biochemical and mechanical cues jointly regulate cell behavior, tumor heterogeneity, and disease progression. My lab develops engineered “tumor-on-a-chip” systems to reconstruct the 3D tumor microenvironment and dissect how cell-cell interactions, fluid flow, and interfacial mechanics influence early metastatic events. In this talk, I will first introduce our approach for the rapid and accessible fabrication of organ-on-a-chip devices using epoxy-coated 3D printed molds. This workflow enables the generation of high-fidelity, biocompatible PDMS-based devices in a scalable, reproducible, and imaging-compatible format. I will then discuss how we are leveraging this technology to reverse-engineer solid breast tumors composed of heterogeneous cancer cell and immune cell subpopulations, including macrophages, to model how tumor-immune interactions shape cell plasticity and collective invasion. Finally, I will present our novel peritoneal cavity-on-a-chip, designed to mimic the primary route of ovarian cancer spread. In this model, individual ovarian cancer cells and clusters can be injected into fluid-filled peritoneal cavities to emulate circulating tumor cells that shed from the ovary during disease progression. Using live-cell imaging, we examine how these cells interact with, and infiltrate, the surrounding mesothelium to initiate metastatic colonization. Together, these approaches establish versatile experimental platforms to study dynamic cell and tissue-level behaviors, providing new strategies to model, predict, and ultimately control metastatic progression.
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