Ex vivo

Glioblastoma

Chemoradiotherapy

Cancer

Extracellular matrix

Temozolomide

Cell biology

Biotechnology

Biology

Internal medicine

Pathology

In vivo

Glioma

Medicine

Cancer research

Nature Biomedical Engineering

Patient-specific ex vivo models of human tumours that recapitulate the pathological characteristics and complex ecology of native tumours could help determine the most appropriate cancer treatment for individual patients. Here, we show that bioprinted reconstituted glioblastoma tumours consisting of patient-derived tumour cells, vascular endothelial cells and decellularized extracellular matrix from brain tissue in a compartmentalized cancer–stroma concentric-ring structure that sustains a radial oxygen gradient, recapitulate the structural, biochemical and biophysical properties of the native tumours. We also show that the glioblastoma-on-a-chip reproduces clinically observed patient-specific resistances to treatment with concurrent chemoradiation and temozolomide, and that the model can be used to determine drug combinations associated with superior tumour killing. The patient-specific tumour-on-a-chip model might be useful for the identification of effective treatments for glioblastoma patients resistant t...

A bioprinted human-glioblastoma-on-a-chip for the identification of patient-specific responses to chemoradiotherapy