Artificial lung will replace laboratory animals
Lung cancer is one of the most common oncological diseases. In many cases, the only hope of patients is chemotherapy, but it does not always bring the desired results. Unfortunately, modern methods of testing the effectiveness of experimental drugs leave much to be desired. To date, the best option is to use animal models, but 75% of drugs that have successfully passed such tests are ineffective in conducting clinical trials.
To solve this problem, researchers at the University of Würzburg, working under the guidance of Professor Heike Walles, propose using an innovative three-dimensional biological system developed by them, which allows reproducing processes occurring in the human body with a high degree of accuracy.
As part of the parallel work carried out, specialists of the Faculty of Bioinformatics of the University are working on the creation of computer simulation models for different groups of patients. This is necessary for the reasons that the genomes of patients may contain various genetic variations that prevent the desired outcome of therapy. Comparing the results obtained using biological and theoretical models will allow researchers of each group to optimize their developments.
The biological model, the volume of which is 0.5 cubic centimeters, is a miniature structure of lung tissue on which a tumor is formed from lung cancer cells. The bioreactor regulates the "breathing" of the model, including its frequency and depth, and also pumps the nutrient-containing medium through the blood vessels penetrating it.
The first experiments showed that therapeutic protocols that cause the development of tumor resistance, when working with the model, lead to the same results. Currently, the authors plan to conduct a series of experiments to find out the possibilities of using the model to test new therapeutic agents and combined treatment protocols. They also hope that in the future their proposed approach can be used to create individual models of a lung affected by cancer using malignant cells isolated from patients' tumors during diagnostic biopsy. This will allow predicting the effectiveness of therapy with high accuracy.
However, testing new drugs is not the only task in which a new model can help. The researchers plan to use the circulatory system of the artificial lung to study the process of metastasis, which will allow developing approaches to prevent this process.
The model will be presented at the International BIO Congress, which will be held on June 23-26 in San Diego, California (German Pavilion, booth 4513-03).
Evgeniya Ryabtseva
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft materials:
Artificial lung the size of a sugar cube may replace animal testing.
30.05.2014