Figure 4.

(A) Glioblastoma spheroids in high throughput high-density hanging drop culture on a microchip. Method allows for the rapid screening of novel therapeutic agents in cancer cells growing in 3D whereby diffusional gradients and cell-cell interactions are more accurately recapitulated than 2D cell culture conditions (monolayer). Green dye (Celltox™ Promega) shows cell death after 24 h of culture (Image courtesy of Anurup Ganguli and Rashid Bashir, UIUC). (B) Relative size of hydrogel scaffolds for the study of (C) 3D glioblastoma spheroids by confocal fluorescent microscopy and associated (D) homotypic (cell-cell) and heterotypic (cell-ECM) interactions by scanning electron microscopy (Images courtesy of Emily Chen and Brendan Harley, UIUC). UIUC, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.