Dr. Aljitawi: This Matrix has many properties of the natural matrix that’s present in the human body. So it’s more natural and it probably captures as close as it can be to what happens in terms of interactions in the human body between cancer cells and the Matrix.
There are obviously different matrix materials out there, but a lot of them do not capture all of these components. So there are collagen matrix material that has collagen but doesn’t have other components. This Matrix has all the components similar to what is actually in the human microenvironment and that makes it different.
We know that cell interaction with the Matrix can be changed depending on what the matrix components are, what its characteristics are, its physical behavior is. So a lot of things can actually change how cells interact with the matrix and having a matrix that’s so similar to what is actually in the cancer microenvironment or human body overall will help us understand more closely these interactions.
And also in vitro, which is very important because these cells go through interactions with the human body all the time. But we can’t capture that in our complex models like animal models, mouse models, but having that in, in the dish, in vitro where you can see that interaction is important.
