Engineering Microscale Biomimetic Hydroscaffold for Dynamic Three-Dimensional Modeling of Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is a deadly cancer for which no diagnostic or prevention plan currently exists since this cancer is asymptomatic in its early development. The very specific and complex tumor microenvironment of PC is responsible for the unsuccessful delivery of therapeutics molecules to tumor cells. For high throughput testing of new molecules, there is a crucial need for more accurate preclinical model. For the first time, we integrated in a microfluidic system 5 major features of PC microenvironment: i) type-I collagen (CI), ii) hyaluronic acid (HA), iii) pancreatic stellate cells (SC), iv) interstitial fluid flow and v) nutrient and oxygen gradients. We showed long 3D culture (30 days). Furthermore, we implemented, thanks to the perfusion capability, the actual FOLFIRINOX protocol to assess the IC50 and we showed that dynamic conditions induce increased chemoresistance compared to 3D static.