開啟主要內容

“Liver-in-Cube” - Next Generation Biomimetic Organ for Precision Medicine

領域
Drug Screening and Evaluation Platform

Key problems and market opportunities

  • According to the World Health Organization, there were approximately 860,000 new cases of liver cancer worldwide in 2022, with China accounting for 45.3%
  • Liver cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in Hong Kong with annual number 1642.
  • Current treatments are limited by low efficacy, high toxicity, and high recurrence rate
  • Precise and individualized sensitive drug screening is the key breakthrough point.
  • Current no advanced platforms for accurate drug response prediction 
  • The FDA has launched an aggressive, multi-year strategy to phase out animal testing, replaced by new humanized models

Key features and advantages of the invention

Liver-in-Cube utilizes 3D bioprinting technology and tumor microenvironment profiling technology to reconstruct a highly pathologically biomimetic tumor immune microenvironment in vitro for precise drug screening. 

  • Patient-derived multi-composition bioink: Using world’s first cell-matrix separation technology, tumor cells, non-parenchymal cells, and matrix proteins are simultaneously extracted from the same patient sample and reconstituted into a tunable matched bioink, fully preserving cell-matrix signaling and material properties.
  • Innovative multi-chamber 3D bioprinting: Uses integrated 3D bioprinting techniques to build a lifelike model containing cancer cells, normal tissue, and blood vessels. 
  • AI-assisted patient-parameterized printing: An AI model accurately determines patient-specific histopathology, stiffness, and tumor immune microenvironment subtypes, and precisely determines the printing structure and bioink formulation for the patient.
  • Microfluidic vascularized long-term testing platform: Using a perfusable microfluidic system to simulate shear stress, nutrient delivery, and immune cell migration, enabling long-term exposure, multi-dose regimens, and cell/gene therapy testing.

Liver-in-Cube

Potential products/services

  • Biomimetic models 
  • Personalized drug screening services
  • CRO services for evaluating drug efficacy and safety

Development Status and IP strength

  • Patent application in CN (202480016848.5), EU (24769980.4) & US (19/164,595)
  • Established standardized pan-cancer models across multiple cancer types, including liver cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, pancreatic cancer, rectal cancer, and glioma
  • Clinical trial undergoing in Queen Mary Hospital and Gleneagles Hospital under application

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