Anne Metje van Genderen and Marta G. Valverde, PhD candidates from Experimental Pharmacology group at UU have some exciting news to share with hDMT.
The two young researchers have been working on a project titled “Co-axial Printing of Convoluted Proximal Tubule for Kidney Disease Modeling“ in which they are combining coaxial printing and on-a-chip approaches for mimicking the kidney proximal tubule. While preparing the manuscript, they put together a poster, which has been awarded “Best Poster” 3 times: at NBTE (Netherlands society for Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering, MDR (Materials Driven Regeneration) Annual Event and UIPS (Utrecht Institute for Pharmaceutical Sciences) 30-year Anniversary symposium!
In their research, Marta and Anne Metje are approaching the lack of architecturally relevant in vitro models from the biofabrication/on-a-chip perspective. For the awarded work, they studied the use of coaxial printing for creating hollow microfibers that resemble the coiled structure of the proximal tubule. Combining biomaterials for the formulation of the hydrogel-based ink, proximal tubular epithelial cells and microfluidics which allow the temporal perfusion of the inner channel, the team proposed a new way of creating constructs that better replicate the proximal tubule architecture. Finally, they showed that the method is not only suitable for mimicking the healthy tubule, but also a rare and terminal disease (cystinosis).
These microfibres offer a complex microenvironment in which the cells exhibit mature markers allowing for mechanistically studying of tubulopathies. Great prospects for the field of kidney tissue engineering!
A sneak peak of the main findings below, in the award-winning poster .
