Development of a robust and sustantainable in vitro 3D model of human tumours for the identification and evaluation of anti-cancer drugs

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The pharmaceutical industry has relied on in vitro models of cancer using traditional cell lines and animalmodels for the progression of drug treatment of cancer with poor success. This failure could be attributed topoor models with currently available human cell lines (where cell lines have the ability to change their geneticmakeup over time in culture away from the original tumour biology) and results obtained in animals nottranslating to man. The aim of this study is therefore to address this problem by development of an in vitromodel using innovative 3D cell culture methodologies alongside novel genetically stable human lung tumourcell lines (which have been shown to maintain their key tumour characteristics after long-term culture). Ifsuccessful, this model will allow for better understanding of the crosstalk between the numerous cell typesinvolved in this complex disease and how new drugs can manipulate this process. In the longer term, this willhopefully lead to the development of more effective anti-cancer therapies, improved treatments for patientsand ultimately a reduction in the use of animals in cancer research and drug discovery.