A team headed by scientists from the Department
"The three-dimensional microtissues better mimic organ tissue behaviour in a living body in comparison to conventional cell cultures and thus provide more meaningful results," says Olivier Frey, who is senior assistant in ETH Professor Andreas Hierlemann's lab and was largely responsible for developing the new method. Another unique feature of the new technology is that scientists are able to combine spheroids made from different tissues in one chip so that they can easily test compound interactions and impact on various tissue types.
More complex experiments now possible
More specifically, the new technology will allow scientists to test the efficacy of compounds to see, for example, whether a potential cancer drug inhibits the growth of tumour cells. By combining tumour and liver tissue in a single chip, researchers are additionally able to test whether the hepatic metabolism decreases or enhances the activity of the active agent, and whether the respective agent is toxic to the liver. In addition to testing drug candidates, it may also be possible to use the newly developed technology in personalised medicine.
In addition to combining cancer and liver tissues, which scientists have tested in their proof-of-concept study, other tissue combinations are conceivable. Researchers are now planning to work on a system including microtissues of organs affected by diabetes: pancreas and liver.
Prize for reducing animal experiments
In contrast to conventional cell culture experiments, the microtissue-based method is useful for providing more comprehensive answers to complex biomedical questions, many of which required animal experiments up to now. The technology offers the potential to reduce the number of animal experiments in biomedical research.
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