Replicating immune response to cancer cells

When cancer cells develop in the human body, they are usually recognised and killed by the immune system. Various immune cells are involved in this process, with certain immune cells detecting and marking the cancer cells, and others destroying them. This process is called the cancer-immunity cycle. Since it does not always work perfectly, however, cancer cells can evade the immune system.

Immuno-oncology has advanced tremendously in recent decades. Part of this approach involves strengthening the immune system to enable it to recognise and kill cancer cells more effectively. New immunotherapies are mainly developed and tested using mouse models, since there are certain similarities between the immune systems of humans and mice.

However, these mouse models have several drawbacks. In addition to the suffering experienced by the animals, the results obtained are too often not translatable to humans, which increases the importance of animal-free alternatives that provide better predictions.

Roger Geiger and his co-researchers are trying to develop one such model. They plan to replicate the cancer-immunity cycle as accurately as possible using stem cells and a tumour-on-a-chip system. This system imitates the human immune system's response to contact with cancer cells as realistically as possible (using tiny channels through which the cells flow in a controlled manner). "As yet, there is no system capable of imitating the entire cancer-immunity cycle," Geiger says. "We hope to change that in the next few years."

If successful, the model could have big implications, not least by replacing thousands of mouse experiments. The team also plans to partner with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to bring their human tumour model to market.

A human tumor model for preclinical immunotherapy trials