Scholar aims to reverse-engineer cancer with 3D tool

To study how cancer develops, Dr. Chen Cao is building tumors in the lab.

Cao (pronounced “Ts’ao”) uses a 3D bioprinter in her new lab at The University of Texas at Dallas to print masses made of living cells and then places them in conditions that replicate the “ecosystems” that surround tumors in the body. By monitoring these model tumor microenvironments, the bioengineer aims to discover why some cancer cells metastasize, or move to other areas of the body, while others do not.

“Why is it that cancerous cells one day gain the ability to invade other tissue and organs? I’m interested in how cells change their fate,” Cao said. “That’s why we are building the tumor microenvironment from the bottom up.”

Cao, an assistant professor of bioengineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, joined UT Dallas in January with support from the First-Time, Tenure-Track Faculty Member program of the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT).

The program is designed to attract top talent in cancer research to the state. Known as CPRIT Scholars, these independent investigators are expected to make outstanding contributions to cancer research. Cao is one of three CPRIT Scholars currently at UTD and the first in the Jonsson School.

Cao said she was drawn to UT Dallas by the CPRIT support and the opportunity to collaborate with medical researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University in the lab of Dr. Michael Levine, who is known for his contributions to the field of developmental biology.

The 3D bioprinter in Cao’s lab can print masses of both cancerous and noncancerous cells. She places the printed cells on microfluidic chips, which are platforms with tiny channels that can supply oxygen or nutrients to keep the cells alive. Cao’s doctoral work at Peking University in China centered on microfluidics.

“We print different cells and let them form tumor environments,” Cao said. “Then we can wait and see which tumor we printed is the most aggressive.”

As a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton, Cao worked with a type of sea squirt called Ciona intestinalis, a small marine animal closely related to vertebrates that is used to study embryo development and gene regulation.

Cao and her colleagues reconstructed the creature’s cell lineages to create a blueprint of how the animal’s heart, neurons, muscles and other tissues develop. During this time, she was first author of a study published in the journal Nature.

At UTD, Cao continues to study Ciona in her Lab of Developmental Systems Biology, which includes an aquarium for the soft, semitranslucent, tube-shaped animal that she hopes can help her translate findings about cell development in animals to that in humans.

“Dr. Cao is helping provide the tools and know-how to look at cell-to-cell interactions. That’s really cutting edge,” said Dr. Rolf Brekken, the Effie Marie Cain Research Scholar in Angiogenesis Research at UT Southwestern, who studies the tumor microenvironment in pancreatic cancer.

“If you can model the tumor microenvironment from the ground up as Dr. Cao is proposing, potentially you could begin to identify novel vulnerabilities that could be targeted or novel biology that could be exploited.”

Dr. Shalini Prasad, professor and department head of bioengineering at UT Dallas, describes Cao’s research as “novel and innovative.”

“Dr. Chen Cao’s multidisciplinary approach toward personalized cancer medicine by taking a deep dive into the fundamental mechanisms and coupling them with precision instrumentation is exciting,” said Prasad, Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor in Systems Biology Science. “We look forward to the evolution of her research and the potential breakthroughs that it may deliver.”