Cancer

Studies have proposed that the gut microbiome play a critical role in childhood cancer diagnosis and treatment. The microbial imbalance in children with cancer has contributed to the toxicity in cancer treatment and is known to produce several inflammatory cytokines which has altered epithelial cell loss and intestinal permeability. Overall this could harm the intestinal tract and heighten negative symptoms during cancer treatment. Even with these preliminary studies there is still not a clear correlation between the gut and the microbiome and how they affect the overall immunity in children with cancer. Moreover, although the impact of cancer treatment on gut microbiota is unequivocal, the specific effects of chemotherapeutic agents have been studied poorly. Current animal or in vitro models are not capable on independently controlling different parameters to study gut-microbiome relationships and do not recapitulate the physiological conditions of the gut. With this tough challenge in mind, our overall research goal is to create a ‘gut-on-chip’ microfluidic model that will enable to study the relationship between the gut microbiota, treatment and immunity in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia