Researchers at the Centre for Nature-Inspired Engineering (CNIE) have published a new Perspective article in Molecular Systems Design & Engineering (MSDE) – a journal jointly published by the RSC and the IChemE. The article was invited as part of MSDE’s 10th Anniversary collection, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. It was led by Dr Valeria Gonzalez Abrego, a post-doctoral researcher at the CNIE, with Matthew H. W. Chin, a CNIE and MSCA Global Research Fellow now at Harvard University, and CNIE Director Marc-Olivier Coppens. The work forms part of the CNIE’s contribution to Cancer Grand Challenges NexTGen, an international project developing the next generation of CAR T-cell therapies for solid tumours in children.
CAR T-cell therapy has transformed the treatment of some blood cancers but has struggled against solid tumours. While most research focuses on the chemical signals that suppress the immune system, the team highlights an overlooked physical problem. Engineered immune cells struggle to squeeze through the dense tissue surrounding a tumour, which places a heavy energy demand on the cells and limits how far they can travel, so they often fail to reach their targets.
To address this, the authors propose using microfluidic platforms, tiny engineered devices that recreate the cramped conditions inside a tumour, to study how confinement affects cell migration and help design tougher, more flexible CAR T-cells better able to push through this barrier. By framing the challenge as an engineering problem rather than a purely biological one, the team offers a roadmap for accelerating the next generation of cancer immunotherapies.
Valeria was in Copenhagen last month for ECM2026, the Extracellular Matrix Pharmacology Congress, to present the design, manufacturing and proof of concept of the group’s own microfluidic device. The poster, “Translating Tumour ECM Architecture into Microfluidic Platforms via Microprinting for Immunotherapy Infiltration Screening”, first authored by Matthew Chin, showed how the device recreates the architecture of the tumour matrix via microprinting, enabling observation and screening of CAR T-cell infiltration under controlled conditions.
The Perspective is open access and available in Molecular Systems Design & Engineering at https://doi.org/10.1039/D5ME00232J.
