Tackling Childhood Cancer Through Bioengineering Approaches

Childhood cancer is a leading killer of children and teens in the United States. Unfortunately, clinical and preclinical trials for childhood cancers are not prioritized by major pharma and biotech firms. The non-profit Children’s Cancer Therapy Development Institute (cc-TDI) seeks to address this unmet need head-on with novel biotech approaches. Most recently, researchers from the cc-TDI published work detailing a novel drug screening approach using an uncommon model: quail eggs. This approach was made possible by a close working relationship between cancer biologists and bioengineers.

According to Esther Landhuis, “At cc-TDI, engineers and biologists work together to analyse drug-testing results alongside DNA- and RNA-sequencing data of tumours — resulting in massive data sets. Berlow says the engineer’s role is to help make sense of them. When intriguing features in the data emerge, biologists can work out what they mean. Although engineers rely on biologists’ expertise to contextualize what might appear as a smattering of stray data points, an engineer’s scant biomedical knowledge — and their fresh perspective — can prove advantageous.”

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(Source: Nature, May 30^th, 2022)