SBIR Phase I: 3D Tumor Model Microtechnology for High Throughput Drug Screening

这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是使用3D肿瘤模型技术开发用于临床前癌症药物测试的药物发现平台。该技术旨在通过增加进入动物研究的候选药物有效的可能性，减少与癌症药物高失败率（约95%）相关的时间和成本。机器人技术将提供一个生物相关的肿瘤模型，以在临床前阶段测试癌症药物库，并取代目前使用的2D癌细胞模型。该项目旨在扩大3D肿瘤模型技术，以适应制药行业测试的大型药物库，并验证其符合行业标准和客户需求。该技术将加快将有效的癌症药物引入市场供患者使用，并有助于减少每年因癌症而死亡的50多万人。通过展示其竞争优势和提高癌症药物发现工作的能力，拟议的工作将大大促进该技术作为临床前癌症药物筛选工具引入市场。该SBIR I期项目提出开发和验证用于制药行业高通量癌症药物筛选的3D肿瘤模型技术。尽管对3D癌细胞培养物有广泛的兴趣，但现有的方法由于其许多缺点而目前未在工业中使用。所提出的技术提供了一种强大的，高通量的，具有成本效益的方法来生成3D癌细胞培养物，用于快速药物筛选，超出了目前可用的范围。这项工作将定量评估3D癌细胞培养的可靠性和稳健性以及癌症药物测试的成本，同时考虑竞争技术。一个主要目标是使该技术适应1536微孔板格式，以进行目前市场上无法获得的高效药物筛选，并验证该技术在动物研究中预测癌症药物反应的能力。这项工作将涉及机器人协议优化，3D文化的一致性成像分析，概念验证癌症药物筛选和稳健性的统计评估。预计这项工作将展示药物测试技术的优势能力和速度，行业水平的稳健性，与不同癌细胞类型的兼容性，预测动物研究药物反应的能力，以及低成本。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project is to develop a drug discovery platform for preclinical cancer drug testing using a 3D tumor model technology. The technology is designed to reduce time and costs associated with the high failure rate (~95%) of cancer drugs by increasing the likelihood that candidate drugs advancing to animal studies will be effective. The robotic technology will provide a biologically relevant tumor model to test libraries of cancer drugs in the preclinical stage, and replace currently used 2D cancer cell models. This project aims to scale up the 3D tumor model technology to accommodate large drug libraries tested in the pharmaceutical industry, and verify that it meets industry standards and customer needs. The technology will expedite the introduction of effective cancer drugs into the market for patient use, and help reduce the more than half a million of lives that cancer claims annually. The proposed work will significantly facilitate the introduction of the technology into the market as a preclinical cancer drug screening tool by demonstrating its competitive advantages and capabilities to improve cancer drug discovery efforts.This SBIR Phase I project proposes to develop and validate a 3D tumor model technology for high-throughput cancer drug screening in the pharmaceutical industry. Despite widespread interest in 3D cancer cell cultures, existing methods are not currently used in the industry due to their many disadvantages. The proposed technology provides a robust, high-throughput, and cost-effective approach to generate 3D cancer cell cultures for rapid drug screening, beyond what is currently available. This work will evaluate quantitatively the reliability and robustness of 3D cancer cell cultures and costs of cancer drug testing while considering competitive techniques. A major goal is to adapt the technology to a 1536-microwell plate format for highly efficient drug screening, which is not currently available on the market, and validate the capabilities of the technology to predict cancer drug responses in animal studies. This work will involve robotic protocol optimization, imaging analysis of 3D cultures for consistency, proof-of-concept cancer drug screening, and statistical evaluation of robustness. It is anticipated that the work will demonstrate the advantageous capacity and speed of the technology for drug testing, industry-level robustness, compatibility with different cancer cell types, ability to predict animal study drug responses, and low cost.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.