How New Technologies Help Scientists Understand Cancer

One of the latest techniques in cancer research is known as “gut on a chip” – and no, that’s not a typo for overeating.

At the famed Institute Curie in Paris – named for Marie Curie, winner of the 1903 Nobel Prize for physics along with her husband and a colleague for their work on radioactivity – researchers are seeking to understand and treat cancer before symptoms even appear.

One way to do that is through “organ on a chip” technology, in which a microfluidic culture is created by using living cells to simulate the activities, mechanics and physiological response of tissue, organs and organ systems.

In a session with National Press Foundation fellows, Curie researchers Danijela Vignjevic and Stephanie Descroix described the methods used for recreating organs. Already, there are models replicating lungs, livers and hearts, and researchers are working to combine different organs onto the same chip.

With close collaboration between biologists and physicists, the new models allow researchers to create a model that replicates the complexity of the human gut. It will help them unravel things such as inflammatory disease, better understand the gut-microbiome interaction, and create platforms for drug screening.

Curie researchers also discussed emerging single-cell technologies and the LifeTime Initiative, a broad collaboration among European research institutes that seeks to understand how genomes function within cells and how cells form tissues and change as tissues progress towards disease.

Some 90 research institutes are involved in the effort.

“Research in the various areas is happening – but not in the coordinated fashion we would like,” said Dörthe Nickel, who is responsible for international scientific affairs at the institute.

This program is funded by Fondation Ipsen and under the aegis of the Fondation de France. NPF is solely responsible for the content.

Danijela Matic Vignjevic
Team leader, cell migration and invasion, Insitut Curie
Geneviève Almouzni
Team leader, chromatin dynamics
Leila Perié
Team leader, quantitative immuno-hematology; scientific co-director, single cell facility, Institut Curie
Sergio Roman Roman
Head of the translational research department, director, SiRIC Curie, Institut Curie
Dr. Emanuela Romano
Medical director, Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Institut Curie
Valentin Popescu
Communication manager, LifeTime initiative, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association
3
RESOURCES ON NEW TECHNOLOGIES FOR CANCER
Help Make Good Journalists Better
Donate to the National Press Foundation to help us keep journalists informed on the issues that matter most.
DONATE ANY AMOUNT
You might also like
Addressing Health Inequalities
Confidence in Scientists
Global Health Strategies
New Thinking on Pain
Scientific Spin
Studying Hate
Developing Vaccines
Scientific Stats 101
The Health Impact of Torture
The New Neurobiology of Addiction
The Science of Science Communication
Understanding Global Health Inequalities
When Science Is Bad
WHO’s Emergency Response System
How to Write About Vaccine Deniers