Current Trends in 3D and Organoid Cell Culture for Cancer Research

Corning was pleased to have recently sponsored a GEN webinar highlighting the latest techniques for 3D cell culture in cancer research. The use of 3D cell cultures has been rising sharply in recent years from its initial introduction, over two decades ago. Because 3D cultures more accurately mimic the cellular environment, they can be used to study various forms of cancer by fostering the growth of organoids that replicate key properties of in vivo organ systems or the original tumors from which they were derived. In addition, many 3D cultures are amenable to large-scale drug screens for rapid detection of phenotypic or genetic changes associated with therapeutic compounds—an approach that opens the door for the use of 3D culture as an integral part of personalized medicine. In this GEN webinar, panelists discussed how the latest 3D cell culture methods have facilitated breakthroughs in their research projects. Panelists: Marshall Kosovsky, Ph.D., Global Scientific Support Manager for Corning Life Sciences, will give a brief introduction into advances in Corning’s 3D culturing solutions. Ömer H. Yilmaz, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will describe his work on how adult stem cells and their microenvironment adapt to diverse conditions within the context of tissue regeneration and cancer initiation through the use of ex vivo intestinal organoid assays. Wojciech Senkowski, Doctoral candidate in the Department of Medical Sciences at Uppsala University in Sweden, will discuss his current work, which looks for applications of various tumor spheroid models in high-throughput drug screening for ways to identify novel compounds that target these cell populations