“A tissue-engineered pancreatic cancer model for dissecting the roles of lymphatic vessels in tumor immunity”

Yansong (Harry) Peng, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, has received IFER funding from 2022-2025 for his project, “Bioengineered microsystems for dissecting the role of lymphatic and blood vessels in regulating tumor interstitial fluid pressure and immunity.” Yansong seeks to create a 3D microfluidic model of vascularized breast cancer tumors in a device containing blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, and breast cancer cells. He can mimic the interstitial fluid flow found in normal and tumor tissues and examine the impact this has on infiltration of immune cells and response to cancer immunotherapies. The breast cancer on a chip model has the potential to provide a better understanding of the mechanism of immunity to immunotherapies and to also serve as a platform for the screening of drugs for this condition, while reducing the use of animal models for this purpose.