India, March 30 -- Umar Sheikh, a PhD student at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, is dedicated to unraveling the intricacies of cancer metabolism. Traditionally, he utilized cancerous cell lines to explore the nuances of aggressive and difficult-to-treat triple-negative breast cancer. However, he sensed a gap in evidence when working with cells grown on flat surfaces, considering tumors are three-dimensional (3D) entities after all.

The prospect of cultivating these cells in 3D environments to mimic disease conditions excited him. What was even more promising was the idea of bypassing cell lines entirely and utilizing patient-derived tumor biopsies to construct 3D tumor-like structures in a dish! Eager to...