Cancer doesn’t grow alone – it has a whole ‘neighbourhood’ around it!

To truly understand how cancers form, spread, and respond to treatments, we need to look at more than just the cancer cells. The area around the tumor – known as the tumour microenvironment – includes the immune system, connective tissue and other cells that all play a role in how cancer behaves.

Because this environment is so complex, it’s difficult to recreate outside the body. But if scientists can find a way to model it in the laboratory, it could be a game-changer for cancer research, helping us develop better treatments and get closer to curing cancer without using animals.

Building better cancer models – one layer at a time

To truly understand cancer, scientists use human cell models, which have come a long way in recent years. Traditional 2D models, where cells grow in a flat layer on a dish, are helpful but can’t fully capture how cancer behaves in a human body.

Now, researchers are taking it up a notch with 3D techniques. By growing “cell balls” called spheroids and organoids, we can create a model that’s closer to how cancer actually forms and spreads. However, to get an even clearer picture, we need to add one more piece: a realistic environment around these cells, like the complex structure found in actual human tumors.

The reliance on animal-based products

Many scientists still rely on animal-based products, like collagen from cows or mice, to grow human cells for research. One popular option, Matrigel – a substance made from mouse tumours – costs millions each year and often varies in quality and composition from batch to batch. Although the exact number of mice used to fulfill the global demand is unclear, it likely that hundreds of thousands of mice are used yearly, alongside the thousands of other animals such as cows and pigs that are used to produce other products including collagen.

But there’s good news! Animal-free alternatives are on the rise. These innovations could completely change the way we grow cells, giving us reliable, human-specific results – without relying on animals.

Turning surgical waste into groundbreaking research

When bowel cancer surgery removes tissue surrounding a tumour, it usually gets thrown away as waste. But Dr Nick Peake at Sheffield Hallam University has found an incredible way to repurpose this tissue, using it to grow animal-free bowel cancer models. This tissue closely mimics the environment around cancer cells, ‘tricking’ the cells to in grow as they would in the body, allowing accurate study of drug responses and insight into cancer processes that we cannot currently study with animal experiments.

By comparing cells grown in this human-derived tissue to those grown in animal-based products, Dr Peake’s work could lead to more effective, human-centered research and, ultimately, better treatments for patients.

Inspiring the next generation of animal-free researchers

Dr Peake has previously hosted three Animal Free Research UK Summer Studentship projects: Rachel Sharp (2018), Rosie Davis (2021) and Sophie Jorgensen (2022), training these students in animal-free research techniques to study bowel cancer.

To promote uptake and train others in these methods, he will publish and share the project outcomes with the wider research community. Dr Peake will also establish clear guidelines on how to obtain, process and use human clinical waste tissue to grow cells in the laboratory, providing a resource to enable other researchers to use these methods.

Dr Peake hopes that these methods will significantly reduce the number of animals used in this area of research each year, while creating human-specific results to improve outcomes for bower cancer patients.