Researchers use spheroids to screen for potential cancer drugs

Researchers have reported an effective way of screening potential cancer drugs.
The Scripps research Institute have a technique that uses three dimensional ball-like cell aggregate known as spheroids that will perform a rapid screening of thousands of compounds. These structures are able to mimic what may happen in a tumour and has led to researchers being able to identify a potential drug to target the symptoms.
“With these 3-D spheroids, we emulate much more closely what’s found in living tissues,” said Louis Scampavia, co-author of the study.
Through this technique, a drug has been identified by researchers that can affect KRS, a protein involved in tissue signalling. Previously, this protein has been very difficult to target and so far, there has been little success, says co-author Joseph Kissil: “The KRAS protein is relatively small, and that’s made it hard to attack it directly. But the method of screening that we used in this study allowed us to come at the question in a different way.”