Mini breasts grown in petri dishes for cancer research

Researchers successfully grew miniature mammary glands from cultured breast epithelial cells, allowing them an opportunity to discover how cells generate the hollow ducts that form a network of branches and terminate in grape-like structures to form the breast.

Stem cells in the breast continuously remodel and renew the breast throughout the reproductive lifespan of women to guarantee milk production for offspring. It is thought that learning how this constant process works will help researchers understand how breast cancer starts and grows.

“This technological break-through provides the basis for many research projects, both those aimed to understand how breast cancer cells acquire aggressive traits, as well as to elucidate how adult stem cells function in normal regeneration,” said Dr. Christina Scheel, of the Helmholtz Center in Munich, in a press release.