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P2029
Microchannel Assays Using Primary Tumor Cells, Co-culture & 3-dimensional Extracellular Matrices
Presenter Steve Hayes, Bell Brook Labs, LLC.,USA
Additional Authors: Allyson Skoien, Victoria Echeverria, Casey Lamers, Gui Su, Andreas Friedl, Ivar Meyvantsson, Steven Hayes
There are several key differences between cellular drug discovery assays and the in vivo condition they hope to model. In vitro assays are typically monotypic, use immortalized cell lines, and are run on flat 2-dimensional plastic substrates. In contrast, cells in vivo are surrounded by other cell types, are primary cells by definition, and exist in a complex 3-dimensional extracellular matrix. These differences are well documented to have profound effects on pharmacology. We present here a microchannel assay approach that enables highly parallel, primary cell, co-culture assays to be run in the presence of 3D extracellular matrices. Furthermore, the arrays allow fully automatable operation using standard liquid handling instrumentation.