Andrea Sofía Flores Pérez

Many cancer drugs fail in clinical trials because results from animal testing don’t accurately predict how they’ll work in humans. To help bridge this gap, I’m developing a human-based tumor model that better mimics how cancer behaves in the body. In the past, researchers have developed human-based tumor models in small lab devices using real patient cancer cells – but these models remain incompatible with standard clinical endpoints like positron emission tomography (PET) due to the lack of blood vessels necessary for radiotracer diffusion. To overcome this limitation, I aim to create a more clinically relevant platform by engineering tiny blood vessels within the tumor model and integrating PET imaging to observe cancer progression—just as it's done in patients during clinical care. In addition to being able to observe cancer development in patients using lab-scale tools, this work could also lead to more reliable, cost-effective, and personalized tools for testing cancer treatments before they reach human trials.