CTIBIOTECH, a regenerative medicine company, has developed a revolutionary 3D bioprinting technology for patients with colorectal cancer to offer individualized treatment.
The platform,
which was created in collaboration with the Medical University of Plovdiv and the UMHAT-Euro hospital in Bulgaria can be used to create
cost-effective and repeatable human colon cancer disease models as well as chemotherapeutic screening.
Professor Colin McGuckin, President and CSO of CTIBIOTECH, stated, “Advancement of cancer therapeutics requires new human models for drug testing.” “For the first time, our 3D models offer patients with precise long-term testing plans.”
Bioprinting methods developed by CTIBIOTECH
One of CTIBIOTECH’s
the main goal is to reduce
medication development costs and time by
creating 3D bioprinted
human cancer models
that can be
used to determine
the most effective treatment for individual patients. The company has been developing 3D bioprinting technologies in-house for the past seven years to increase its 3D tissue engineering capabilities for skin research.
CTIBIOTECH previously collaborated with BASF’s Care Creations subsidiary on research into 3D tissue models of human skin glands, and as a result of that collaboration, the company began developing a 3D bioprinter capable of organizing sebaceous (skin) micro-glands into a dermatological model.
In the past, the company has collaborated with CELLINK,
a Swedish 3D bioprinter manufacturer, to research new cancer medicines. The company used CELLINK’s machines to construct tumorous tissue models in the lab, with the hope of lowering the pre-clinical drug screening’s 40 per cent attrition rate.
As part of the NOVOPLASM project,
CTIBIOTECH just become the first company in the world to 3D print fully immunized human skin.
Hundreds of skin models
are being donated
to the research for the consortium
to test its cold plasma wound healing technology on infected burns and skin grafts.
Treatments for colon cancer are being developed.
Colon cancer is the third most
common cancer in the world,
with more than 1.8 million new cases diagnosed each year.
The World Health Organization (WHO)
estimates that up to 12 million people would die from colon cancer by 2030,
with poor prognoses for those with late stages of the disease.
According to a new study conducted by CTIBIOTECH, the Medical University of Plovdiv,
and the UMHAT-Euro hospital, due to significant false-positive and false-negative rates
in preclinical and clinical drug testing data, just 0.1 per cent of all medications make it from the lab to the hospital bedside.
During the research,
the researchers created 3D bioprinted “glandular-like” colon cancer tumours that had similar morphologies to the tumours of patients.
The researchers used CTIBIOTECH’s CTIBioTumour bioprinting technology to reliably identify colorectal cancer biomarkers and mimic resistance to standard-of-care chemotherapeutics.
According to the company,
its technology can cut the time
it takes to develop new pharmaceuticals by three years, while preclinical testing
time might be cut
from six years to two to three years.
The CTIBioTumour platform could also cut drug development
costs by 20%, saving up to €520 million for every medicine developed, according to reports.
The business hopes that its bioprinting platform can aid in
the evaluation of drug candidate’s safety and efficacy,
as well as the implementation of customized medicine platforms to better predict a patient’s
reaction to various cancer treatments.
