High-dose drug heat map based on organoid array chip for drug selection with high safety and efficacy

An organoid array chip was developed by adopting a micropillar and microwell structure to test safety and efficacy of drugs using high dose drug heat map. In the chip, we encapsulated patient-derived cells in alginate and grow them to maturity for more than 7 days to form cancer organoids. When screening drug compounds in a high-density organoid array due to lack of number of patient-derived cells, changing media without damage of organoids is a very tedious and difficult process. Organoids grown in conventional well plates needed too many cells and were also easily damaged due to multiple pipetting during maintenance culture or during experimental procedures. To solve those problem, we applied a micropillar and microwell structure to the organoid array. We used patient-derived cells from patients with Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and lethal form of central nervous system cancer, to validate the array chip performance. After forming more than 100{micro}m-diameter organoids in 12 x 36 pillar array chip (25mm x 75mm), we tested 70 drug compounds (6 replicates) with high high-dose to find out high safety and efficacy drug candidates. Comparing the drug response of organoids derived from normal cells and cancer cells, we identified four compounds (Dacomitinib, Cediranib, Ly2835219, BGJ398) as drug candidates without toxicity to GBM cells.