Queensland University of Technology

Bioengineered humanised models: A novel preclinical platform for bone metastatic cancer research  

In her research Nathalie, a researcher at The Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at the Queensland University of Technology, is looking to understand how and why cancers such as advanced breast and prostate cancer metastasise and thrive in the bones, presenting, to date, with no cure. She and her fellow researchers at QUT currently want to propose new and better ways of assessing prostate cancer when it has spread to bones. “This may help us find new contributors to cancer within the bone, and thus help unravel therapies that can one day be curative instead of palliative,” she explains.

Promising results of her work so far include the creation of a live bone tissue mimic in 3D in the laboratory. It has been used to study prostate cancer behaviour in a more relevant way compared with traditional two-dimensional methods, she says.