3D printed liver used for drug testing
Organovo Holdings presents data supporting the use of 3D bioprinted liver tissues for drug toxicity testing and liver fibrosis modeling
Organovo has announced five presentations at the Society of Toxicology’s (“SOT”) 55th Annual Meeting and ToxExpo, on March 13–17, 2016, in New Orleans.
The company said that these presentations will demonstrate the broad applicability of it’s exVive3DTM Human Liver Model for the assessment of drug safety and the detection of multiple clinically-relevant modes of liver injury, including steatosis and fibrosis.
Sharon Presnell, chief technology officer and executive vice president of research and development, Organovo, said: “Drug-induced liver injury remains a major cause of late-stage clinical failures and market withdrawal, often due to poor translation from preclinical animal studies to clinical outcomes.
“Organovo’s exVive3D human liver model replicates complex cell-cell interactions and key elements of native tissue architecture to enable the detection of multiple clinically-relevant modes of tissue injury, including necrosis, immune-mediated tissue damage, steatosis, and fibrosis.
“When a preclinical or clinical-stage asset presents a challenging safety or efficacy signal, exVive3D provides the unique resolving power of a controlled human tissue microenvironment to investigate mechanism and develop solutions.”
Paul Gallant, general manager, Organovo, said: "Organovo’s exVive3D Human Liver Model provides an accurate, predictive and reproducible model of human liver biology for preclinical toxicity testing.
“At the SOT Annual Meeting, we and our pharmaceutical customers will be highlighting recent results that show our 3D bioprinted human liver tissue effectively models in vivo tissue composition and physiology.”
Organovo said that the presented data supports the use of the exVive3D Human Liver Model in:
- Investigating in vitro mechanisms of drug-induced liver injury with biochemical and histologic endpoints.
- Evaluating liver toxicity caused by long-term compound treatment, as well as liver recovery following drug removal.
- Capturing the spectrum of drug-induced changes at the tissue level, including reduced liver function and vascular remodelling.
- Demonstrating drug-, chemical-, and TGF-b1-induced liver fibrosis at the cellular, molecular and histologic level.
- Interrogating and identifying over time the key cellular and molecular events underlying fibrogenesis.
- Characterizing the short and long-term effects of acetaminophen.
- Examining immune-mediated, drug-induced liver injury