Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Cancer spreading beyond the primary tumor – a process known as metastasis – is responsible for at least two-thirds of cancer deaths. Drugs targeting the metastatic progression have largely failed, in part due to the lack of predictive models that would help identify the underlying mechanisms of metastasis.
While animal models have led to key advances in the understanding of metastasis-related mechanisms, the persistent clinical failures of drugs targeting metastatic progression suggest that the differences between human and rodent biology cannot be discounted.
In a study published on August 19 in Science Translational Medicine, Columbia Engineering professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team report the development of a multi-organ chip that mimics how cancer cells spread from vascular flow to distant organs, the first model of cancer metastasis of its kind. The chip includes compartments with millimeter-sized engineered human bone and lung tissues, and the vascular flow that contains circulating breast cancer cells and allows the dynamic cross-talk of the tissues being colonized.
Cancer spreading beyond the primary tumor – a process known as metastasis – is responsible for at least two-thirds of cancer deaths. Drugs targeting the metastatic progression have largely failed, in part due to the lack of predictive models that would help identify the underlying mechanisms of metastasis.
While animal models have led to key advances in the understanding of metastasis-related mechanisms, the persistent clinical failures of drugs targeting metastatic progression suggest that the differences between human and rodent biology cannot be discounted.
In a study published on August 19 in Science Translational Medicine, Columbia Engineering professor Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic and her team report the development of a multi-organ chip that mimics how cancer cells spread from vascular flow to distant organs, the first model of cancer metastasis of its kind. The chip includes compartments with millimeter-sized engineered human bone and lung tissues, and the vascular flow that contains circulating breast cancer cells and allows the dynamic cross-talk of the tissues being colonized.
