New approach for studying deadly brain cancer
Now a team of engineers has developed a three-dimensional hydrogel that more closely mimics conditions in the brain. In a paper in the journal Biomaterials, the researchers describe the new material and their approach, which allows them to selectively tune up or down the malignancy of the cancer cells they study. The new hydrogel is more versatile than other 3-D gels used for growing glioma (brain cancer) cells in part because it allows researchers to change individual parameters — the gel’s stiffness, for example, or the presence of molecular signals that can influence cancer growth — while minimally altering its other characteristics, such as porosity. …