Fractal Microvasculature for Quantitative Studies of Tumor Response to Oxygen

Tumor adaptation to hypoxia is governed by the interplay between environment geometry, oxygen transport, and cellular behaviors. We introduce a fractal microvasculature fabricated by two-photon polymerization, designed to replicate the hierarchical branching and diffusion characteristics of real blood vessels within a 5 mm-scale construct. The structure includes engineered micro-holes for controlled infusion of oxygen carriers and solutes into a flowing medium. Cancer cells are cultured around this synthetic vasculature, while oxygen-sensitive fluorophores enable simultaneous mapping of oxygen concentration fields during live-cell imaging. Combining these maps with time-lapse microscopy, we try to reveal how local oxygen gradients modulate cell morphology, motility, and collective alignment. This platform provides a physically tunable, quantitative model for studying the feedback between oxygen transport and tumor dynamics under controlled biophysical conditions.