Researchers at Kanazawa University, Japan, have reported a mixed-glial culture on/in soft substrate (MGS) platform to investigate cancer-glia interactions in vitro. Using this model, they showed that astrocytes favored brain metastasis by promoting metabotropic glutamate mGlu1 receptor (mGluR1) expression in cancer cells and stabilizing EGFR. Eishu Hirata, an associate professor at the Cancer Research Institute, Division of Tumor Cell Biology and Bioimaging at Kanazawa University, and his team published their work on Feb. 2, 2024, in Developmental Cell.