In recent years, many research groups have begun to utilize bioengineered in vitro models of cancer to study mechanisms of disease progression, test drug candidates, and develop platforms to advance personalized drug treatment options. Due to advances in cell and tissue engineering over the last few decades, there are now a myriad of tools that can be used to create such in vitro systems. In this review, we describe the considerations one must take when developing model systems that accurately mimic the in vivo tumor microenvironment (TME) and can be used to answer specific scientific questions. We will summarize the importance of cell sourcing in models with one or multiple cell types and outline the importance of choosing biomaterials that accurately mimic the native extracellular matrix (ECM) of the tumor or tissue that is being modeled. We then provide examples of how these two components can be used in concert in a variety of model form factors and conclude by discussing how biofabrication techniques such as bioprinting and organ-on-a-chip fabrication can be used to create highly reproducible complex in vitro models. Since this topic has a broad range of applications, we use the final section of the review to dive deeper into one type of cancer, glioblastoma, to illustrate how these components come together to further our knowledge of cancer biology and move us closer to developing novel drugs and systems that improve patient outcomes.

近年来，许多研究小组已开始利用生物工程体外癌症模型来研究疾病进展机制、测试候选药物并开发平台以推进个性化药物治疗方案。由于过去几十年细胞和组织工程的进步，现在有无数的工具可用于创建此类体外系统。在这篇综述中，我们描述了开发精确模拟体内肿瘤微环境（TME）并可用于回答特定科学问题的模型系统时必须考虑的事项。我们将总结在具有一种或多种细胞类型的模型中细胞来源的重要性，并概述选择准确模拟所建模的肿瘤或组织的天然细胞外基质 (ECM) 的生物材料的重要性。然后，我们提供了如何在各种模型形状因素中协同使用这两个组件的示例，并通过讨论如何使用生物制造技术（例如生物打印和器官芯片制造）来在体外创建高度可重复的复合物作为结论楷模。由于该主题具有广泛的应用范围，因此我们使用综述的最后部分更深入地研究一种癌症，即胶质母细胞瘤，以说明这些成分如何结合在一起，以加深我们对癌症生物学的了解，并使我们更接近开发新的癌症改善患者治疗效果的药物和系统。