Core 1: Tissue Microfabrication Core

The elucidation of biophysical mechanisms that lead to metabolic aberrations in tumors and, in turn, impact cancer progression, requires specialized capabilities for the manipulation of cells, biological materials, and tissues and for the development of computational models to evaluate hypotheses and interpret experimental data. Additionally, the assessment of the clinical relevance of these mechanisms and their translation toward therapeutic applications requires coordinated access to patient-derived samples with thorough clinical and genetic profiling and data basing. The Tissue Microfabrication Core will provide project investigators a shared infrastructure that satisfies these requirements organized into three aims: 1) management of the acquisition, clinical and genomic characterization, data banking, and distribution of patient derived tissues; 2) development and fabrication of advanced culture platforms and microfluidic devices for the characterization of cells and biomaterials; and 3) hierarchy of computational models to support metabolic analysis and the design and interpretation of experiments.