Thread as a Low-Cost Material for Microfluidic Assays on Intact Tumor Slices

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Oncology

Background:

• The high cost of developing new chemotherapy drugs necessitates innovative and affordable drug screening methods.
• Microfluidic techniques offer a potential solution to reduce the immense costs associated with cancer drug development.
• Ex vivo testing of intact tumor tissue is crucial for evaluating drug efficacy and patient-specific responses.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a low-cost microfluidic chemosensitivity assay using thread as the primary material.
• To demonstrate the feasibility of using thread for precise fluid delivery to subregions of intact tumor tissue.
• To explore thread as a viable, inexpensive alternative to conventional microfluidic materials for drug screening.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a microfluidic device using inexpensive thread materials (silk, nylon, cotton, polyester).
• Utilizing capillary action for fluid transport, eliminating the need for external pumping hardware.
• Selective delivery of fluids onto subregions of living xenograft tumor slices for ex vivo drug testing.

Main Results:

• The developed thread-based microfluidic device is fabricated for under $0.25 in materials.
• The device requires no external equipment for operation, enhancing its accessibility.
• Varying thread materials (silk, nylon, cotton, polyester) allowed for optimization of device characteristics like flow rate.

Conclusions:

• Thread is a highly effective, low-cost material for creating microfluidic devices for chemosensitivity assays.
• This approach significantly reduces the cost and complexity of drug screening, making it suitable for low-resource settings.
• The thread-based microfluidic assay holds promise for advancing accessible and user-friendly cancer drug development and testing.