Hydrogel to enable tumour-targeting cancer treatment

Researchers from Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have developed a 3D-printable material that opens the way to personalised cancer treatment by enabling multiple, simultaneous tests to find the correct therapy to target a particular tumour.

With the appearance of a small, translucent gem, the new material is a gelatine-based hydrogel that mimics human tissue. The method for producing the hydrogel is published in the journal Nature Protocols.

“Hydrogel is a biomaterial used by thousands of researchers around the globe; gelatine is based on collagen, one of the most common tissues in the human body,” explained Professor Dietmar W Hutmacher, a co-author on the study from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation (IHBI). “We have modified the gelatine to engineer 3D tumour microenvironments.”

Professor Hutmacher said the hydrogel could be used as a ‘bioink’ to print 3D ‘microenvironments’, or models of a tumour, to test different anticancer drugs. He explained, “We will be able to use this hydrogel infused with tumour cells to quickly create a number of models of patient-specific tumours.

“Instead of the sometimes hit-and-miss chemotherapy that affects every cell in the body, this will allow us to test different anticancer drugs and different combinations of them all at once so that we can pinpoint an individualised treatment that will hit only the cancer cells.

“It will cut the process of finding a personalised treatment for each patient down to a week or two.”

Because the hydrogel can be modified to mimic the firmness of cartilage or softness of breast tissue, it can be used to create models for all types of cancer and also for research on stem cells and tissue engineering. Additionally, it can be inexpensively produced on a large scale.

“It is highly reproducible, which means we have been able to produce this hydrogel hundreds of times, not just once or twice in the lab, so researchers worldwide will be able to create it,” Professor Hutmacher said.