{"id":1793,"date":"2025-06-21T22:32:01","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T04:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/?p=1793"},"modified":"2025-06-22T22:28:54","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T04:28:54","slug":"knight-dilan-advances-tumor-on-chip-collaboration-with-harvard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/2025\/06\/21\/knight-dilan-advances-tumor-on-chip-collaboration-with-harvard\/","title":{"rendered":"Knight-Dilan Advances Tumor-on-Chip Collaboration with Harvard"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

In a milestone partnership, Knight-Dilan Research Hospital welcomed Dr. Elena Zhang\u2019s Harvard team this week to jointly advance microfluidic breast-tumor models in their state-of-the-art T<\/strong>umor-on-Chip<\/strong> Innovation Suite. Leading the collaboration, Senior Research Associate Sarah Montoya demonstrated how these chips faithfully recreate the breast-cancer microenvironment\u2014fluid dynamics, oxygen gradients, and stromal cell interactions\u2014all on a single glass slide.<\/p>
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Sarah guided the visitors past banks of illuminated incubators and the steady hum of perfusion systems to a row of translucent devices no larger than a smartphone. \u201cHere, we grow living breast-cancer cells alongside supportive fibroblasts and a continuous trickle of nutrient medium,\u201d <\/strong>she explained, pointing to a high-resolution camera feed. \u201c<\/strong> It truly behaves like a miniature tumor.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Standing beside her, Professor Cyrus Jr. Knight added, \u201cTraditional flat cultures can\u2019t simulate the mechanical forces a tumor experiences in the body. Our platform lets us watch cancer cells respond in real time.<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong> With a tap on the touchscreen, he initiated a controlled flow of chemotherapy drugs. Sensors immediately reported where cells underwent apoptosis and where escape pathways activated.<\/p>
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Dr. Zhang leaned forward, eyes bright. \u201cOn our own chips, we can\u2019t replicate the spatial drug gradients you achieve here. It\u2019s remarkable to observe resistance patterns emerge before our eyes.<\/strong>\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Over coffee in the hospital\u2019s glass-walled atrium, the two teams sketched out next steps: integrating single-cell RNA sequencing to map transcriptional shifts, and testing patient-derived cells to personalize treatment screening. Plans are already underway to deploy simplified versions of these chips in Knight-Dilan\u2019s mobile screening units, bringing point-of-care drug testing to rural clinics across Texas.<\/p>
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As the day closed, Sarah tucked her badge into her lab coat, reflecting on the partnership\u2019s potential. \u201cTumor-on-chip isn\u2019t just high-tech science\u2014it\u2019s a pathway to faster drug discovery and truly personalized oncology,\u201d she said. At Knight-Dilan, where compassion drives innovation, Sarah Montoya and Professor Cyrus Jr. Knight are confident their work will set a new standard in cancer care\u2014one microfluidic channel at a time.<\/p>


<\/p>\n\n

Professor Knight, Sarah Montoya, Dr. Zhang and their teams gathered over coffee at Knight-Dilan\u2019s atrium table, brainstorming next steps on tumor-on-chip and personalized oncology\u2014all warmed by steaming mugs and bright ideas.<\/em><\/p>

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The Next Day in Dr. Sarah\u2019s Lab<\/strong><\/p>
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Dr. Sarah tapped the marker against the edge of the whiteboard, where a hand-drawn schematic of the new microfluidic assay kit sprawled across three panels. The lab\u2019s afternoon light glinted off the rows of glass bottles and pipettes behind her. Around the high table, six students leaned in, their eyes fixed on the colorful diagram.<\/p>
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Dr. Sarah explaining the assay kit to her students<\/em><\/p>

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\u201cOkay, everyone,\u201d Sarah began, her tone both brisk and warm. \u201cThis kit is designed to recreate a patient\u2019s tumor microenvironment on a chip. Let\u2019s walk through it step by step.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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She circled the first panel: a small, clear cartridge etched with zig-zag channels. \u201cHere\u2019s the cell chamber. We seed it with your live sample\u2014tumor cells mixed with stromal support cells\u2014and let them settle into these grooves.\u201d <\/strong>A student raised a hand. \u201cHow do we prevent the cells from clumping?\u201d Sarah grinned. \u201cGood question. That\u2019s where the next module comes in.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Moving to the middle panel, she pointed at a miniature peristaltic pump and tubing loops. \u201cThis perfusion system gently flows media through the chip. The rate\u2014about five microliters per minute\u2014keeps nutrients moving without shearing the cells. It also creates gradients of oxygen and drug we can tune in real time.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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A soft hum accompanied her flourish of the marker as she sketched tiny sensors along the channels. \u201cThose gold-tone dots are built-in biosensors. They continuously measure pH and metabolic byproducts\u2014so instead of waiting days for an endpoint assay, we get live feedback on how the cells respond to therapy.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Sarah clicked her pen and the whiteboard switched to the final panel: a handheld reader with a touchscreen. \u201cOnce the run is complete, you slip the chip into this reader. It takes high-resolution images, analyzes sensor data, and spits out dose-response curves in minutes. That means we can test multiple drug combinations on a single sample\u2014tailoring treatment faster than ever before.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Hands shot up as students absorbed the promise of the system. \u201cWhat about sterilization?\u201d \u201cHow do we calibrate the sensors?\u201d \u201cCan we integrate immune cells, too?\u201d<\/strong> With each question, Sarah guided them deeper: demonstrating how to prime the tubing with ethanol, walking them through calibration routines, and sketching out plans for co-culturing T-cells alongside tumor cells.<\/p>
\n\n

Dr. Sarah Montoya explains the tumor-on-chip platform to her students<\/strong>, pointing out the device\u2019s microfluidic channels, stromal zones, and sensor arrays as a live breast-cancer model flows beneath their eyes. A whiteboard diagram and coffee cup complete the picture of innovation in action.<\/em><\/p>
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Dr. Sarah Montoya Explains Tumor-on-Chip<\/strong><\/p>
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<\/strong>In the sleek, glass-walled lab, Dr. Sarah Montoya stood before a whiteboard dense with diagrams of microfluidic channels. Behind her, a row of transparent chips hummed gently under perfusion pumps. Students gathered around, notebooks ready.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere\u2019s our prototype,\u201d<\/strong> Sarah began, tracing a channel with her gloved finger. \u201cEach microchannel mimics the structure of a breast tumor\u2019s vasculature. We seed one channel with cancer cells, another with fibroblasts, then introduce fluid flow to recreate blood circulation.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the board she sketched drug gradients: red dye flowing from one inlet, blue from another, merging into a gradient. \u201cWhen we add chemotherapy agents\u2014like doxorubicin and paclitaxel\u2014into these inlets,\u201d <\/strong>she continued, \u201cwe can watch in real time how tumor cells die or mount resistance. That spatial drug gradient is impossible in 2D culture.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

she continued, sketching a rectangular chip with three parallel channels, \u201cwe\u2019re going to build our own tumor-on-chip model\u2014step by step.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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First, she drew the main cell chamber. \u201cHere\u2019s where we load our breast-cancer organoids. They\u2019re suspended in a collagen\u2013matrix hydrogel so they retain their 3D structure.\u201d She labeled tiny inlet ports on one side. \u201cThese two inlets deliver fresh media and therapeutic drugs\u2014mimicking the blood vessels feeding a real tumor.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Next, she traced the narrow connecting channels. \u201cNotice the 200-micron-wide microchannels. Fluid moves through at controlled rates\u2014just like capillary flow in vivo\u2014so we can create realistic shear stresses on the cells.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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She then added sensor icons along the top. \u201cWe\u2019ve embedded pH and oxygen sensors here and here. That lets us monitor how cells respond\u2014whether they consume oxygen faster under treatment or acidify their microenvironment.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Pointing to a third compartment, she labeled it \u201cstromal zone<\/u>.\u201d \u201cThis region holds fibroblasts or immune cells. Tumors don\u2019t exist in isolation; their microenvironment can drive drug resistance or sensitivity. By coculturing these cell types, we capture those critical interactions.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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Dr. Sarah turned to face her students. \u201cOnce the chip is assembled, we mount it on our perfusion pump\u2014this unit precisely controls flow rates between 1 to 10 microliters per minute. Then we run our experiment: record live-cell imaging, sample the outflow to measure secreted factors, and harvest cells afterward for single-cell RNA sequencing.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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She paused, letting her words sink in. \u201cTumor-on-chip systems bridge the gap between petri dishes and patients. They allow us to see, in real time, how a tumor evolves under mechanical forces, nutrient gradients, and targeted drugs\u2014all on a device no larger than your smartphone.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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A hand shot up. \u201cSo we can test personalized therapies using a patient\u2019s own cells?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>
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\u201cExactly,\u201d <\/strong>Dr. Sarah smiled. \u201cThat\u2019s the promise: rapid, patient-specific drug screening\u2014and ultimately, smarter, faster routes to effective treatments.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>


<\/p>\n

Another student raised her hand. \u201cHow do we measure cell response?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sarah smiled. \u201cWe integrate on-chip sensors\u2014electrochemical probes that detect apoptotic markers\u2014and then corroborate with live-cell imaging. We also collect effluent to run transcriptomic analysis, mapping changes at the single-cell level.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

She turned to the corner of the whiteboard where she\u2019d listed databases and tools: PubMed for literature mining, GEO for expression data, TCGA for patient genomics. \u201cThese resources let us align our in-vitro findings with clinical datasets, guiding us to potential biomarkers for resistance.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another student asked about broader applications. \u201cWith patient-derived cells,\u201d <\/strong>Sarah replied, \u201cwe can personalize screening\u2014testing different drug combinations on each patient\u2019s tumor chip before they ever receive treatment.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As she wrapped up, Sarah tapped a final note: \u201cOur goal is to deploy simplified chips in Knight-Dilan\u2019s mobile units\u2014screening patients in rural clinics, delivering precision oncology at the point of care.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The students left energized, minds racing with possibilities. For them, tumor-on-chip wasn\u2019t just another lab technique\u2014it was the future of cancer research, bridging the gap between bench and bedside.<\/p>


<\/p>\n

By the time she tapped the board to signal the end of her demo, the students were already clustering around the lab bench, prodding at the gleaming kit components. Dr. Sarah stepped back, satisfied. This wasn\u2019t just theory\u2014they could almost taste the future of precision oncology, one microfluidic channel at a time.<\/p>


<\/p>
\n\n

Dr. Sarah is illustrating the heart of our tumor-on-chip work at Knight-Dilan.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a milestone partnership, Knight-Dilan Research Hospital welcomed Dr. Elena Zhang\u2019s Harvard team this week to jointly advance microfluidic breast-tumor models in their state-of-the-art Tumor-on-Chip Innovation Suite. Leading the collaboration, Senior Research Associate Sarah Montoya demonstrated how these chips faithfully recreate the breast-cancer microenvironment\u2014fluid dynamics, oxygen gradients, and stromal cell interactions\u2014all on a single glass slide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1797,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[33,38,37],"tags":[41,43,42],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breast-cancer","category-medical-education","category-next-generation-technologies","tag-chip","tag-microfluid","tag-tumor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/tumor-on-Chip.png?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1837,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/1837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oncomotive.com\/store\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}