Advanced Microfluidic Platform for Tumor Spheroid Formation and Cultivation Fabricated from OSTE+ Polymer

Research Overview

Tumor spheroids are increasingly the preferred format for drug screening because they reproduce in vivo drug-resistance behavior, but forming uniform spheroids and handling them precisely remains hard. This study introduced a droplet-microfluidic chip that carries the entire workflow: spheroids form from cell suspensions inside individual droplets, the droplets then merge into a continuous aqueous phase, and the spheroids transfer to an on-chip cultivation area with trapping elements for extended perfusion culture.

By integrating formation, release, and long-term cultivation on one chip, the platform addresses the consistency and manipulation challenges that limit spheroid-based screening.