Category Archives: News

EUROoCS RAB presents resources for Organ-on-Chip validation and qualification at the EUROoCS 2022 Conference

The Regulatory Advisory Board (RAB) of EUROoCS is supporting activities in relation to the regulatory aspect of Organ-on-Chip (OoC) approaches. The RAB has worked closely together with the EU Reference Laboratory for alternatives to animal testing (EURL ECVAM) – an integral part of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) – on compiling a set of resources. This resource list is expected to be used as a reference point for the EUROoCS community in the development of OoC models towards their qualification and regulatory acceptance. The catalogue incorporates two different – but interconnected – set of resources: a carefully selected...

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Awards for Niek Bloks and Marcella van Hoolwerff at OARSI 2022

Niek Bloks and Marcella van Hoolwerff, PhDs from the osteoarthritis research group at the LUMC in Leiden headed by Prof. Ingrid Meulenbelt, were awarded for their ‘highest rated abstract’ during OARSI 2022 in Berlin. In the osteoarthritis research group a human in vitro 3D organoid model has been established in which hiPSCs are differentiated to deposit neo-cartilage with high similarity to autologous cartilage (over 90%). This human model can be applied to study cartilage homeostasis in health and disease and can be used for drug screening purposes. Both, Niek and Marcella used the organoids to gain insight in etio-pathophysiological effects...

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Bring in the Lymph

In the Lymphchip project, a consortium of researchers, engineering companies and pharmacists now takes these chips to the next level by adding a functioning immune system. Valeria Orlova, assistant professor at the Department of Anatomy and Embryology at Leiden University Medical Center and leader of the LymphChip project explains: ‘When we are able to include lymphatics in organ-on-a-chip systems, we will not only have a system that can mimic the immune response of human organs, which will significantly expand their potential applications in research. We will also have a system to study the development and function of the lymphatic system...

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Ariëns award for Christine Mummery

During the FIGON/EUFEPS European Medicines Days 2022 in Leiden on June 2nd 2022, Christine Mummery received the Ariëns award for her work on mini-hearts from stem cells. This award is named after the famous Dutch pharmacologist Prof. Dr. E.J. Ariëns (1918-2002), one of the founders of pharmacology in the Netherlands. After the Ariëns lecture the award was handed over to Christine Mummery by the Dutch Pharmacological Society. Read the full article here (Source Figon magazine June 2022) Source: NVF  

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NWO-XS grant for Ana Ruiz Saens on breast cancer spheroids

Targeted therapies such as trastuzumab and the antibody-drug-conjugate T-DM1, have revolutionized the treatment for HER2+ breast cancer patients. These antibodies target HER2, the highly glycosylated driver of these cancers. Despite the knowledge on the role of glycosylation in different aspects of tumor progression, the influence of altered glycosylation on the efficacy of HER2-targeted therapies remains unknown. This proof of concept project aims to explore the impact of altered glycosylation on the response to HER2-targeted therapies and, holds the potential to open new research lines towards a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the response to targeted therapies in cancer....

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Robert Brown Early Career Investigator award for Riccardo Levato

Riccardo Levato received the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society on June 28th 2022. The award committee valued his contribution to the field of Tissue Engineering, in terms of a) developing new 3D bioprinting technologies, including a new technique named volumetric bioprinting, which allows to build cell-laden constructs of any size and geometry in less than 20 seconds; and b) building, via applying these biofabrication technologies, advanced in vitro models of tissue (microphysiological liver units) and transplantable osteochondral grafts for musculoskeletal repair.   The Robert Brown Early Career Principal Investigator Award recognizes an individual, who has demonstrated outstanding achievements...

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Veni grant for Kirsten Pondman

Kirsten Pondman (UTwente, group Séverine LeGac) was awarded a Veni from NWO-TTW for her project: Circulating tumor cells: together we triumph, divided we fall Cancer cells can travel through the body as clusters, with for example immune cells and/or platelets. These clusters (CTMs) may be better equipped to survive in the blood flow and cause cancer spreading (metastasis) compared to individual cancer cells (CTCs). Yet, their extreme rarity makes their study very challenging. Here, CTM models will be created, with well-defined compositions, to identify which of their characteristics increase their survival and ability to cause metastasis, using a blood vessel model....

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ILTS Young Investigator Award for Shaojun Shi

Shaojun Shi from Department of Surgery, Erasmus University Medical Center, the Netherlands won a ILTS Young Investigator Award from the International Liver Transplantation Society for his research entitled “ Modeling ischemic cholangiopathy in human cholangiocyte organoids for screening of novel cholangio-protective agents”

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Research grant on Parkinson disease for Amalia Dolga

Prof. Amalia Dolga (GRIP, University of Groningen) was awarded a research grant from Stichting Parkinson Fonds, of 250,000 Euros. This research will be performed by a talented Postdoctoral fellow, Angelica Sabogal Guaqueta, in collaboration with co-PI’s Prof. Arjan Kortholt (GBB, University of Groningen) and Prof. Sabeth Verpoorte (GRIP, University of Groningen). In this project, they will investigate how miscommunication between neurons and microglia affect the pathology of Parkinson’s disease. The team combines the expertise of the Dolga lab (iPSC differentiation into brain cells, including neurons and microglia, mitochondrial and LRRK2 biology), the Kortholt lab (LRRK2 biochemistry, tools and structure) and...

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Hat-trick for the kidney team of Roos Masereeuw

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)...

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