LTFs derived from tumor biopsies retain the native architecture and microenvironment of the parental tumor, including immune cells, which are required to predict response to immunotherapy.

Unlike spheroids or organoids, there is no requirement for the expansion of cells or reconstitution of immune cells, enabling a faster turnaround time to characterize the MOA and/or efficacy of candidate therapeutics.

Additionally, precision fragmentation of tumor biopsies eliminates the need for non-specific enzymatic dissociation of tumor tissue, which can disrupt/alter the native tumor architecture.

Conventional techniques such as confocal microscopy can be destructive and have limited penetration into the tissue sample.

Elephas’ multiphoton imaging is non-destructive, enables real-time monitoring of immune cells, and allows label-free imaging at significantly higher penetration depths to investigate LTFs in 3D.

Multiplexed assays are routinely used to profile cell markers, cytokines, chemokines, and mRNA expression to determine response to drugs. However, these assays are typically performed in the absence of spatial context.

By combining various assessments with multiphoton imaging, we can analyze spatial and temporal information at single cell resolution to understand the impact of drugs on cell-cell interactions, cell morphology, and the arrangement of cells in LTFs over time.

The combination of these techniques also generates a rich and diverse dataset that can be used to train AI algorithms to predict response to different therapies.