Anticancer drug screening is one of the most important research and development processes to develop new drugs for cancer treatment. However, there is a problem resulting in gaps between the in vitro drug screening and preclinical or clinical study. This is mainly because the condition of cancer cell culture is quite different from that in vivo. As a trial to mimic the in vivo cancer environment, there has been some research on a three-dimensional (3D) culture system by making use of biomaterials. The 3D culture technologies enable us to give cancer cells an in vitro environment close to the in vivo condition. Cancer cells modified to replicate the in vivo cancer environment will promote the biological research or drug discovery of cancers. This review introduces the in vitro research of 3D cell culture systems with biomaterials in addition to a brief summary of the cancer environment.
Keywords: 3D cell culture; biomaterials; cancer cells; tissue engineering.