Silvia Buonvino (36 cycle) from Prof Sonia Melino group has participated in the development of a new device for study of cell migration and invasion in 3D cellular systems. This chip will be very useful for in vitro studies and will allow to analyse the impact of potential therapeutic approaches on cancer cell properties. This discovery has been patented and published in Advanced Healthcare Materials.

“3D Cell Migration-chip” (3DCM-chip) provides the easy large-scale analysis of different experimental conditions to assess cell invasiveness in 3D culture systems and enables cell co-cultures for drugs and cells screening for therapeutic purposes. The chip’s features allow microscopic analyses (optical, epifluorescence and confocal microscopy) as well as biochemical assays. The 3DCM-chip is used to evaluate:

-The migration and invasiveness of different cell types, including normal, stem and cancer cells;
-The response of cells to biochemical and mechano-physical factors;
-The response of cells to potential drugs;
-The effects of the presence of other cell lines on the migration of the considered cells.