Awarded in 2025
Home Department: Bioengineering
Faculty Advisors: Yunzhi Yang (Orthopaedic Surgery), Guillem Pratx (Radiation Oncology), and John Sunwoo (OHNS/Head & Neck Surgery Divisions)

Research Title: Development of Vascularized Microphysiological Tumor Models for Mimicking Human PET Imaging

Many cancer drugs fail in clinical trials because results from animal testing often don’t translate well to humans. To address this, Andrea is developing a human-based tumor model that more accurately mimics how cancer behaves in the body. While researchers have recreated patient tumors in lab devices using real cancer cells, these models lack blood vessels and can’t support standard imaging techniques like PET scans. To overcome this limitation, Andrea aims to engineer tiny blood vessels within the tumor model and integrate PET imaging—just as it’s done in the clinic. 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.