In Vitro Models to Compare the Duration of Action of New Therapeutic Scaffolds and Drug Eluting Medical Devices

Local therapies are in development for targeting of brain tumors and cancer stem cells, as well as non-brain tumors, due to significant transport barriers that hinder sufficient drug accumulation at the disease site. For chemotherapeutics, local delivery is already a well-established practice in the clinic for brain tumors. For immunotherapy applications, local therapies can include the delivery of immune cell engagers, adoptive cell therapies, or combination therapies to encourage adaptive responses. The duration of action of local therapies is important to extend and screen to identify efficacious formulations with a single or minimal administration. To this end, this chapter discusses the development of three-dimensional embedded multi-cellular spheroid models to track spheroid killing in real time and to screen the extended duration of action of local T cell engagers with new therapeutic scaffolds and drug eluting medical devices.