Abstract

On Chip Approach to Onco-Immunology and Immune System Response

Luca Businaro, Scientist, Italian National Research Council

The immune system is a striking example of an integrated information system, engaged in coordinated host-protective activities. Organs-on-chip approach (OOC) models allow the direct simultaneous observation of hundreds of different cells, moving, interacting and responding to signals coming from the microenvironment nearby, that give access to a number of parameters describing the system that must be properly measured and elaborated. Combining microfluidics with the ability of cellular imaging enable to collect quantitative data from complex biological systems at a single-cell level. When monitoring immune systems, the interplay between different cell types and the impact of functional responses reflect the roles of players and goals, respectively. The reconstitution of the immune-cancer system on chip, thus, opens a new window to live observation of the host immune response with or without drug treatments, making OOC a cornerstone for dissecting complex biological phenomena and pre-clinical testing of drugs. Smart implementation of image processing algorithms enable to quantify the simultaneous long-time interactions of huge number of cells and accurately solve the practical problems encountered in multi-cell type context.