Guest Editors
Bruna Martins Garcia
Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine; Spanish National Research Council
Dr. Bruna Martins Garcia is a postdoctoral researcher at the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Spain. She is a biotechnology engineer by training from São Paulo State University (Brazil) and completed her master’s degree in molecular biology at São Carlos Federal University (Brazil), with an internship in mitochondrial biology at the University of Padova (Italy). She holds a PhD in natural sciences from the University of Cologne (Germany) and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging (Germany), with a short stay at the University of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), where she studied the regulation of metabolic pathways. Her postdoc focuses on how metabolism regulates the non-random dissemination of breast cancer cells during metastasis. Over the last few years, she has investigated how to use metabolic vulnerabilities to predict future metastatic sites and develop organ-specific therapies, including diet-restriction approaches to prevent metastasis.
Cristina Álvarez Álvarez
Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine; Spanish National Research Council
Cristina Álvarez Álvarez is a PhD student at the Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (CABIMER), affiliated with the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Spain, under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Altea Manzano. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from the University of Oviedo and a master’s degree in biomedicine and molecular oncology. Her doctoral research focuses on understanding how a high-fat diet influences breast cancer progression and metastatic dissemination, with particular interest in cancer metabolism and tumor–microenvironment interactions. Her previous research experience includes the development of early detection models for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. She also completed a three-month research stay at the Biomedical Research Institute of Málaga (IBIMA), where she gained experience in liquid biopsy approaches for studying and detecting breast cancer in patients. Her broader research interests include cancer biology, breast cancer metastasis, cancer metabolism, liquid biopsy, and translational biomedical research.
Collection Overview
Three-dimensional (3D) models have emerged as powerful experimental tools for cancer research, providing a more physiologically relevant representation of tumor architecture, cellular interactions, and microenvironmental cues than conventional two-dimensional (2D) cultures. The increasing use of spheroids, organoids, organs-on-chip, extracellular matrix-based models, and other advanced 3D platforms offers new opportunities to investigate tumor biology, cancer progression, metastasis, and therapeutic responses. However, the complexity of these techniques can make protocols difficult to reproduce across laboratories. In this context, JoVE's video-based format is particularly interesting, allowing researchers to directly visualize critical experimental steps, technical details, and practical considerations that are often difficult to describe in conventional protocols.
This Topical Collection aims to bring together innovative and reproducible methodologies and update discussions about modeling cancer. By providing detailed visual demonstrations of 3D methodologies, the collection can help researchers implement and optimize 3D models and improve experimental reproducibility. Ultimately, it will support broader adoption of more physiologically accurate models and advance cancer research.