| dc.description.abstract | Cancer is the second most common cause of death in the United States, leading to over $440 million in annual funding for research and yet anticancer drug development is an unmet need. In order to find a more effective way to prevent, detect and treat this disease, new cancer therapies are studied. Human Umbilical Cords (HUC) have been used as a scaffold in various tissue engineering approaches including tissue engineered blood vessels, tissue engineered tendons among many. The decellularized HUCs have been shown to support the growth of a variety of cell types including mesenchymal stem cells, smooth muscle cells, endothelial cells. To have a complete 3D in-vitro model for cancer research, it is necessary to seed and grow tumor cells on the outside part of the cords called the Wharton’s jelly. This work attempts to show if cancer cells can attach and proliferate on the Wharton’s jelly side of the decellularized and non-decellularized (ideally fresh but 5 days old cords in this study) HUC. Two different types of cancer have been tested in this project: Breast and Prostate cancer. Two main hypothesis have been tested; first, that the cancer cells would adhere and proliferate to the decellularized Wharton’s jelly of the HUC and second, that the cancer cells would adhere and proliferate to the non-decellularized Wharton’s jelly of the HUC. DNA assays have been performed at specific point time (6 hours, Day 2, 6 and 10) to observe the cellularity of the different constructs and histology images have been recorded to examine their tissue structures. The decellularized Wharton’s jelly of the HUC has not shown conclusive results due to a potential contamination during the decellularization protocol. On the other hand, the attachment on non-decellularized constructs shows promising results, especially with the study using the prostate cancer cell line. Further analysis is needed to confirm those results. | en_US |
