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Review
. 2022 Apr 7;9(4):166.
doi: 10.3390/bioengineering9040166.

In Vitro Cancer Models: A Closer Look at Limitations on Translation

Nina Antunes  1   2 , Banani Kundu  1   2 , Subhas C Kundu  1   2 , Rui L Reis  1   2 , Vítor Correlo  1   2
Affiliations
Review

In Vitro Cancer Models: A Closer Look at Limitations on Translation

Nina Antunes et al. Bioengineering (Basel). .

Abstract

In vitro cancer models are envisioned as high-throughput screening platforms for potential new therapeutic discovery and/or validation. They also serve as tools to achieve personalized treatment strategies or real-time monitoring of disease propagation, providing effective treatments to patients. To battle the fatality of metastatic cancers, the development and commercialization of predictive and robust preclinical in vitro cancer models are of urgent need. In the past decades, the translation of cancer research from 2D to 3D platforms and the development of diverse in vitro cancer models have been well elaborated in an enormous number of reviews. However, the meagre clinical success rate of cancer therapeutics urges the critical introspection of currently available preclinical platforms, including patents, to hasten the development of precision medicine and commercialization of in vitro cancer models. Hence, the present article critically reflects the difficulty of translating cancer therapeutics from discovery to adoption and commercialization in the light of in vitro cancer models as predictive tools. The state of the art of in vitro cancer models is discussed first, followed by identifying the limitations of bench-to-bedside transition. This review tries to establish compatibility between the current findings and obstacles and indicates future directions to accelerate the market penetration, considering the niche market.

Keywords: 3D cancer models; cancer; commercialization; gap analysis; point-of-care modelling tool.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 5
Figure 5
The dual view of cancer models: what already exists (left side) and what is hindering their arrival to the clinics (right side) (This schematic drawing is created using some images from Servier Medical Art (https://smart.servier.com (accessed on 18 September 2020)). Servier Medical Art by Servier is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License).
Figure 1
Figure 1
Estimations of new cancer cases and cancer deaths occurred in 2008 [3], 2012 [4], 2018 [5] and 2020 [6] worldwide, including a projection for 2040 (light blue—new cancer cases; light orange—cancer deaths) [2].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of publications in the field of 3D in vitro cancer models in the past five years. The graph is based on the search results using the keywords “3D models” and “cancer” from 2015 to 2020 for documents in English in Scopus. The findings are further narrowed down to those publications which either use 3D in vitro models to study aspects of cancer or describe the development of a new platform.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Types of cancer that are represented in 3D models (from the search mentioned in Figure 2). In “others” are included thyroid, renal, gastric, mesothelioma, bladder, head and neck, and blood cancers. “Non-specific” refers to papers that use cells from different cancer types (different cell lines) or do not use cancer cells in the model. “Reviews” also include opinion papers and book chapters.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The number of patents issued between 2015 and 2020. Search from the PatentScope database [51] of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), using the terms “3D cancer model” and the field “front page”.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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