Improving In Vitro Cancer Modeling With Chip-A1

Oncology drug candidates have the lowest success rate in clinical trials, with only 5.1% of Phase I candidates receiving FDA approval. Understanding a tumor’s microenvironment is crucial for regulating cancer progression and developing more effective therapies, and Chip-A1 provides researchers with this capability.

In an August 15, 2023 webinar, Luke Dimasi, Senior Director of Product Management at Emulate, introduced the Chip-A1 Accessible Chip, a new Organ-Chip consumable. This technology enhances Organ-on-a-Chip applications by enabling the creation of thicker, multilayered tissues within the epithelial culture chamber and allowing direct treatment of the tissue with topical or aerosolized drugs. Following Dimasi’s presentation, Elee Shimshoni, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, shared insights from her work at the Wyss Institute at Harvard. Her team used a Chip-A1 prototype to explore epithelial-stromal interactions in Barrett’s Esophagus and the mechanisms of esophageal cancer progression.

The webinar covered:

• New capabilities of Chip-A1 that expand Organ-on-a-Chip applications
• Improvements in in vitro modeling of epithelial-stromal interactions and tumor microenvironments with Chip-A1
• A case study using Chip-A1 to model Barrett’s Esophagus
• The potential of the Barrett’s Esophagus Chip-A1 model for personalized drug-response assessments across different patients or genetic subpopulations

Organ-on-a-Chip technology represents a significant advancement in drug discovery. By mimicking human physiology, Organ-Chips can enhance the predictive accuracy of preclinical models and accelerate the development of new drugs.