Presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Meeting 2026
Aji Istadi1,2, Ali McCorkindale3*, Silvia Lombardi1,2, Inna Navarro1,2, Diego Chacon-Fajardo1,2, Henry Barraclough-Franks1,2, David Hermann1,2, Sean Porazinski3, Marco Herold4, Paul Timpson1,2, Greg Neely5, Marina Pajic1,2
1. The Garvan Institute of Medical Research, Darlinghurst, NSW Australia. Corresponding author: a.istadi@garvan.org.au
2. St Vincent’s Clinical School, Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Sydney, NSW Australia
3. Inventia Life Science, Alexandria, NSW Australia. * Presenting author.
4. Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute, Austin Hospital, VIC Australia
5. Charles Perkins Centre, The University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW Australia
Pancreatic cancer remains one of the hardest cancers to treat, in part because dense fibrotic tumour microenvironments limit immune cell activity and reduce immunotherapy efficacy. This study used the RASTRUM™ Allegro platform to build 3D bioprinted pancreatic cancer co-culture models that combine cancer, stromal, immune, and microenvironment components in a scalable format for screening.
The models supported translationally relevant cellular heterogeneity, reproduced key cancer-associated fibroblast, cancer cell, and T cell interactions, and showed stronger overlap with native pancreatic tumour biology by single-cell RNA sequencing. The system also enabled analysis of T cell infiltration and showed that CAFs protected cancer cells from T cell killing, highlighting its value for studying immune evasion and combination therapy response in a more physiologically relevant setting.