Chapter 14 - 3D scaffold materials for skin cancer modeling

Abstract

Cancer cells show different behaviors in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) culture systems or in vivo. These differences stem from a variety of factors, such as the absence of important biological determinants, physical cues, and chemical composition of the environment. All of these factors affect the shape, motility, morphology, contraction ability, attachment, formation, proliferation, differentiation, and invasiveness of different types of cancer. Skin is the largest organ in our body, and protect us from different environmental hazards. In terms of prevalence, skin cancer is a rather less common type of malignancy. Nonetheless, malignancies of the integumentary system are unequivocally invasive, and have a poor prognosis. Skin cancer accounts for only 8% of the annual cancer-related deaths around the world. Because of the nature and structure of human skin, development of models to represent this organ is one of the most challenging tasks in the pharmaceutical industries. One of the major reasons for the failure in treating skin cancer is the lack of analogous models for authentic investigation of natural responses in the laboratories. The researchers are designing and developing of 3D culture models for skin cancer. A few skin cancer models are available and some of them are nearly identical. However, they may be promising after certain improvements for effective skin cancer treatments. In this chapter, we put some advances made in the skin cancer research even though very limited literatures are available on 3D skin cancer models using biomaterials.