# Multiplexed drug testing of micro-dissected tumors using a microfluidic platform with integrated electrochemical aptasensors

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON · 2024 · $629,966

## Abstract

ABSTRACT: The integration of electrochemical biosensors with microelectronics offers a unique avenue for
miniaturized, low-cost systems that merge biomolecular sensing with digital computing, programming, and
communication. Here we propose to integrate electrochemical aptamer-based sensors (“aptasensors”) into a
microfluidic multi-well platform to enable multi-time-point, highly parallel readouts of cell death and cytokine
secretion from intact tumor biopsies during and after drug treatment. Our platform will allow for gathering the
large amounts of molecular data that are needed for machine learning approaches to drug testing.
Cancer drug testing – a central process in cancer drug development and personalized oncology – is often
inaccurate and inefficient because it typically relies on studies in cell cultures or animals that lack the human
tumor microenvironment (TME). Only <4% of cancer drugs out of the ~1,000 drugs in clinical trials each year
pass the safety and efficacy tests; more than half of the failures are due to lack of efficacy. Hence, on average,
bringing a drug to market takes >10 years and costs >$1 billion, often resulting in high prices for the drugs. In
the last decade, technologies such as patient-derived organoids and organs-on-chips have brought some hope.
However, these approaches have much lower throughput than traditional cell cultures and are generally unable
to fully recreate the TME of an intact tissue. These limitations are a fundamental hurdle for the personalization
of therapies which often need to be customized to the unique TME of the patient, and also for the development
of combination immunotherapies, which target the TME and are exponentially increasing in number. Thus, a
different paradigm for drug testing that preserves the human TME is critically needed to help transition oncology
into a stage of more affordable and rapidly evolving treatments.
The Folch and Gujral labs have developed an intact-tissue microfluidic drug testing platform based on regularly-
sized, cuboidal-shaped microdissected tissues (referred to as “cuboids”) that are mechanically cut with a tissue
chopper. In under an hour, more than 10,000 cuboids (~400 µm-wide) can be produced from ~1 cm3 of solid
tumor. The cuboids are never dissociated and retain much of the native TME (e.g. immune cells and
microvasculature). The platform is a user-friendly multi-well device that can microfluidically trap and selectively
treat a large array of cuboids. Here we propose to integrate electrochemical aptasensors into our cuboids
platform to enable the automated, multi-time-point monitoring of secreted compounds (cytokines or cell death
indicators) within the wells and the straightforward implementation of electrical readouts from large cuboid arrays.
As a proof of concept, we will use cuboids from mouse tumors and patient samples in a 96-well format. We will
use a mouse model and patient samples of colorectal cancer (CRC) liver metastases. Using machine l...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10818461
- **Project number:** 5R01CA272677-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON
- **Principal Investigator:** ALBERT FOLCH
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $629,966
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-04-01 → 2028-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10818461

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10818461, Multiplexed drug testing of micro-dissected tumors using a microfluidic platform with integrated electrochemical aptasensors (5R01CA272677-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10818461. Licensed CC0.

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