Drug screening on 3D tumor spheroids

We report a versatile platform for the production of spheroids of various dimensions, based on tumor cells only (mono-culture spheroids) or a combination of tumor cells and fibroblasts (co-culture spheroids). Spheroids prepared in microwells of different dimensions and with different cellular compositions are characterized in terms of size, cellular organization, and protein expression profiles. Following this, drug screening assays are conducted, either in situ in the production platform or in a separate microfluidic platform in which individual microtissues are isolated, trapped and exposed to model nanoparticle solutions under either static or dynamic conditions.