Breast Cancer Microenvironments: Then, Now And Tomorrow

Think of a cancer microenvironment as a complete ecosystem that sustains cancer cells in a tumor. The environment includes not only biological material, such as the cancer cells and the extracellular matrix, but also response triggers, such as mechanical cues and biochemical signals.

One reason researchers are so keenly interested in studying cancer microenvironments is because of their utility in understanding cancer progression.

As cancer investigators continue to glean the reconstructive benefits of 3D models' in vivo-like contexts for their investigations, those learnings have yielded a better understanding of how — and why — 3D is superior to 2D when creating cancer microenvironments.