Student: Faruky Abedin
Project: Evaluating Invasion of Glioblastoma Cells in Rat Cortical Spheroids
View: Research Poster (PDF) | Presentation (YouTube)
Department: Bioengineering
Advisor: Yevgeny Berdichevsky
Abstract
Glioblastoma (GBM) is highly aggressive and malignant primary brain tumor. Suitable in-vitro models are necessary for translation of GBM research to clinical application. A widely used extracellular matrix (ECM) based GBM invasion assay fails to mimic the complex invasion behaviors of GBM in the patients. Human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) derived organoids possess differentiated neurons only in the superficial layer, with the center filled with progenitor cells. We use primary rat cells to create robust and fully differentiated cortical spheroids and use them to evaluate GBM invasiveness. Using patient derived GBM cells, we developed two assays to evaluate the infiltrative behavior of GBM cells in rat cortical spheroids that is also observed in human specimens. Our work illustrates the highly invasive behavior of GBM cells. GBM cells became completely integrated with rat cortical spheroid within two days of incubation. Fixed culture showed that GBM cells were in close proximity to neurons which illustrates their possible interaction with neurons. We also observed the signature invasive protrusions in live imaging. Finding these invasive characteristics in our in-vitro model, we can conclude that our assay is capable of demonstrating reliable modeling of GBM invasion which researchers could use for future experiments. Compared to using iPSC derived organoids which sometimes takes 2 months of experimental timeline, our assay is significantly faster.
Md. Joynal Abedin, Sharon K Michelhaugh, Sandeep Mittal, Yevgeny Berdichevsky
Department of Bioengineering, Lehigh University
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Lehigh University
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech
About Faruky Abedin
Md. Joynal Abedin (Faruky) is a 4th year PhD student in the department of Bioengineering at Lehigh University. Previously, he received his bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). At present, he is doing research toward his doctoral degree in Neural Engineering Lab under supervision of Professor Yevgeny Berdichevsky. His research goal is to look into how epilepsy develops in-vitro. He with his group members also develops cultures, recording technology as well as new assay technique for high throughput drug screens. Besides his research in epilepsy, he is also developing assay technique to evaluate invasiveness of glioblastoma cells. He usually visits beautiful places whenever possible.