Lab-made organ-like tissues that mimic how cancer spreads
Tissue engineered organ-specific cancer metastasis model for cancer research
The team is building lab-grown organ-like scaffolds that let cancer cells from patients and cell lines grow in organ-specific ways to help guide better treatments for metastatic cancer.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Ut Southwestern Medical Center NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Dallas, United States) |
| Project ID | NIH-11190824 on NIH RePORTER |
What this research studies
Researchers remove cells from real organs but keep the organ’s protein scaffolding to create a biomatrix that feels like the original tissue. They place cancer cells, including circulating tumor cells from patient blood, onto these biomatrices to see where and how tumors form. The work compares growth on “good soil” organs like liver and lung versus “bad soil” organs and looks at how the matrix proteins change tumor behavior and treatment response. This platform will be used to test drugs and explore why metastases prefer certain organs.
Who could benefit from this research
Good fit: People with solid tumors, especially those with or at risk for metastasis, or patients willing to provide blood or tissue samples for research, would be the best match for involvement in related sample collection efforts.
Not a fit: People without solid tumors or those unwilling to donate samples are unlikely to gain direct benefit from this project.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could produce lab models that better predict where a patient’s cancer will spread and which therapies are most likely to work.
How similar studies have performed: Related decellularized-matrix and organ-mimicking approaches have shown promise in lab and early patient-derived cell work, but applying them as routine clinical tools is still new.
Where this research is happening
Dallas, United States
- Ut Southwestern Medical Center — Dallas, United States (Active)
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Wang, Andrew Zhuang — Ut Southwestern Medical Center
- Study coordinator: Wang, Andrew Zhuang
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.