Glioblastoma on a Chip

Researchers use 3-D printing technology to construct a brain cancer model that accurately recapitulated in vivo biology and predicted patient drug responses.

Written byJef Akst
| 3 min read
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The paper

H.-G. Yi et al., “A bioprinted human-glioblastoma-on-a-chip for the identification of patient-specific responses to chemoradiotherapy,” Nat Biomed Eng, 3:509–519, 2019.

Hee-Gyeong Yi was a new graduate student in Dong-Woo Cho’s group at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in South Korea in 2012 when she came upon a study that had used three-dimensional scaffolds to build models of oral tumors. If arranging cells in a particular formation was a good way to build cancer models that mimic what’s going on in the body, Yi, who had been working on 3-D printing of cartilage cells at the time, thought: “Why not print cancer?”

She discussed the idea with fellow Cho lab members, then approached group collaborator Sun Ha Paek, a neurosurgeon at Seoul National University College of Medicine who proposed using glioblastoma (GBM) to test the idea. “[GBM] patients suffer from the extraordinarily ...

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  • Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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On Target July Issue The Scientist
July/August 2019

On Target

Researchers strive to make individualized medicine a reality

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