Phenotypic Screening for Cancer Drug Discovery

Project Details

Description

The PESCADoR consortium aims to combine complementary local expertise to develop a high content, phenotypic screening or "fishing" platform that fully recapitulates the complexity of solid human cancers. We will provide matching, well characterised tools for cost-effective and fast pre-clinical drug discovery and chemosensitivity testing, based on living microtissues.

This consortium aims to develop an experimental platform that recapitulates the architecture of human cancers. Three-dimensional “spheroid” cultures, lab-on-a-chip, so-called microfluidics and 3D bioprinting solutions have already contributed to physiologically much more relevant model systems – compared to standard two-dimensional monolayer cultures. However, such models are not yet more predictive for the outcome of treatment in clinical practice! There is still a high demand for better models that recapitulate or mimic the response of functional and living tissues, not just single cells, to anti-cancer therapies. Ideally, better platforms for testing anti-cancer therapies should also provide a possibility for fast microscopic imaging. This imaging-based evaluation of drug effects is entirely based on structural information. With a platform like this, we can not only test drugs, but also means to specifically deliver compounds to the cancer cells.
Short titlePESCADoR
AcronymPESCADoR
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date01/09/1731/08/21

Collaborative partners

UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This project contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being