Anticancer drug discovery has long been hampered by the poor predictivity of the preclinical
models. There is a growing realization that the tumor microenvironment is a critical …

Highlights•Drug discovery is expensive and time consuming.•Failure of anticancer drugs is a
major clinical challenge.•Two-dimensional cancer cell cultures do not completely reproduce …

The importance and advantages of three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures have been well-
recognized. Tumor cells cultured in a 3D culture system as multicellular tumor spheroids …

The tumor microenvironment contributes significantly to tumor initiation, progression, and
resistance to chemotherapy. Much of our understanding of the tumor and its …

An area that has come to be of tremendous interest in tumor research in the last decade is
the role of the microenvironment in the biology of neoplastic diseases. The tumor …

The mechanisms underlying the spatiotemporal evolution of tumor ecosystems present a
challenge in evaluating drug efficacy. In this Perspective, we address the use of three …

Classically, most cell culture experiments have been performed under adherent 2D
conditions. Cells in the human body grow within an organized 3D matrix, surrounded by …

Human cancer cell lines are an integral part of drug discovery practices. However, modeling
the complexity of cancer utilizing these cell lines on standard plastic substrata, does not …

The discovery of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer commonly uses cell
proliferation assays in which cells grow as two-dimensional (2D) monolayers. Compounds …

Over 90% of potential anti-cancer drug candidates results in translational failures in clinical
trials. The main reason for this failure can be attributed to the non-accurate pre-clinical …