The Right Tool for the Right Job: Bioanalytical Methods to Elucidate the Personalized Nature of Cancer (INVITED SPEAKER)

Cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease with significant differences between patients (intertumor heterogeneity) and among cells in the tumor microenvironment (intratumor heterogeneity) motivating the need for a more personalized approach to fundamental cancer research and diagnostics. The analysis of enzymatic activity and cellular behavior in single, intact cells yields more precise information than the bulk analysis of cell lysates and allows researchers to collect both endpoint and dynamic measurements. When examining cell lysates alone, the heterogeneity is averaged across the entire population and valuable information about distinct subpopulations is masked or lost entirely. Emerging technologies, such as microfluidic devices, coupled with novel biosensors have allowed for high-throughput, facile analysis and sorting of individual cells to provide new information on low occurring, rare phenotypes. Microscale systems offer a significant advantage over competing technologies due to reduced cost, ease-of-use, significant reproducibility, biological inertness, and a compatibility with light microscopy. This talk will focus on recent work utilizing a combination of microfluidic devices and peptide-based biosensors to develop novel bioanalytical tools for a more personalized approach to cancer research. It will highlight our efforts to identify drug resistant subpopulations of cancer cells by combining cell permeable, long-lived, enzyme-specific, fluorescent, peptide-based reporters with a microfluidic droplet trapping array and automated image analysis algorithm. It will also explore recent efforts using a microfluidic approach to study the behavior of cancer cells during metastasis and within the tumor microenvironment in particular: how stromal cells enhance cancer cell progression and drug resistance.