Brachytherapy on-a-chip

Research tool, Life sciences

UNMET NEED

Radiotherapy is one of the most effective cancer treatments, with an estimated 50% of all patients being treated with radiotherapy during their management, either as a primary mode of treatment or in combination with drugs.

Brachytherapy, a type of radiotherapy, involves inserting radioactive seeds inside or near the tumour target itself. Irradiation from within the tumour has the advantage of maximizing the dose it receives while sparing the surrounding normal tissue.

Brachytherapy can be delivered using a variety of devices, methods of insertion, radiation sources, radiation types, energies and radiation dose rates. However, there is no tool to measure in vitro efficacy to make proper choices and maximize its translational potential

TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW

We propose the first ever microfluidic device for in vitro testing of brachytherapy (Chermat et al., 2024). This device is used to:

1) Grow large, hypoxic spheroids on-chip or other models (Refet-Mollof et al., 2021)
2) Apply highly precise irradiation with radioactive sources implanted within the chip itself
3) Complete reliable post-treatment bioanalysis (i.e. Neutral Comet, Clonogenic Assay and y-H2AX foci quantification by IF)
4) Test drug treatment or development combined with radiotherapy.

This device constitutes a first step toward a better integration of brachytherapy to translational research and/or pre-clinical drug development pipelines, with little effort and minimal cost.

A fully fonctionnal prototype allows precise and repeatable insertion of clinical radioactive seeds. It has been used with three different cell lines to recapitulate a dose rate effect and show hypoxia linked to radioresistance. Other cell lines (commercial or patient-derived) and tumour samples (e.g, “micro-dissected tissue”) can be studied using this device.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Naturally hypoxic spheroids
-Relevant model
Reliable dose calculation
Low-cost
Safe to handle
Simple workflow

BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

Technology available for in licensing or strategic partnership
Seeking for industrial partner for co-development
Eligibility to government financing for industry/academic development program

MARKET APPLICATIONS

Translational research
Drug development
Calibration and dose rate measurements
Personalized medicine

PUBLICATIONS

IP PROTECTION

Patent Pending(PCT – March 2024)

CONTACTS

Thomas Gervais, Ph.D

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Department of Engineering Physics
Polytechnique Montréal

Sébastien Bergeron

CONTACT PERSON
Director, Business Development
Axelys
sebastien.bergeron@axelys.ca