Tumor-on-a-chip devices for cancer immunotherapy

Abstract This chapter introduces a range of microfluidics-based approaches to the manipulation of immune cells and the recapitulation of the tumor microenvironment, i.e., Tumor-on-a-Chip, for elucidating the mechanism of immune surveillance and for advancing cancer immunotherapy. This chapter starts with a brief introduction of microfluidics created by the use of advanced microfabrication, as well as unique flow phenomena at the microscale, such as laminar flow and droplets. Tumor-on-a-chip models and approaches have demonstrated unprecedented capability to reconstruct and exploit essential tumor features and to produce and screen therapeutic immune cells and compounds in an efficient and high(er)-throughput manner. In particular, Tumor-on-chips enable the recapitulation of key complex and tissue-level tumor features, such as vascularization and extravasation, which are usually challenging for conventional in vitro methods. Tumor-on-chips represent a set of powerful and versatile engineering tools that hold promise for meeting diverse needs of advancing cancer immunotherapy.