Objective The maintenance of the skeleton is tightly coupled with balanced bone formation and resorption processes that are mediated by osteoblasts and osteoclasts, respectively. Loss of this balance results in skeletal pathologies representing some of the most significant public health threats faced by the growing and ageing population. Tissue engineering investigates various health aspects such as drug development, fundamental research and regenerative medicine. State-of-the-art approaches are lacking to mimic one essential functional property of bone: to adapt its 3D morphology according to imposed mechanical loads. As most drugs for skeletal diseases act on this anabolic-catabolic balance, an engineered system serving as a human in vitro model for drug discovery/testing needs to be able to mimic this process. This proposal aims at combining real-time monitoring of mineralized extracellular matrix with bone tissue engineering culture standards in advanced bioreactors and will design a reliable 3D in vitro model system to mimic load induced remodeling of tissue-engineered human bone. The following particulars will be systematically addressed: i) Establishment of a co-culture of human bone-forming cells and human bone resorbing cells capable of mimicking bone remodeling; ii) Real-time monitoring platform in 3D in order to take the temporo-spatial development of the tissue into account and to allow specific adapted and controlled interventions depending on the actual environmental situation; iii) Quantitative simulation of morphological bone adaptation induced by mechanical load. The proposed research activity will have important implications in fields ranging from pharmacology and biotechnology to biomechanics and medicine. It will result in a ground-breaking platform that could be applied to screen initial bone drug effects and will improve our fundamental understanding of structure-function relationships in normal and diseased bone conditions. Fields of science medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discoverymedical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiologyepidemics preventionmedical and health sciencesmedical biotechnologytissue engineeringmedical and health sciencesbasic medicinepathologynatural sciencesbiological sciencesbiophysics Programme(s) FP7-IDEAS-ERC - Specific programme: "Ideas" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013) Topic(s) ERC-SG-PE8 - ERC Starting Grant - Products and process engineering Call for proposal ERC-2013-StG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-SG - ERC Starting Grant Host institution TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN EU contribution € 1 496 859,00 Address GROENE LOPER 3 5612 AE Eindhoven Netherlands See on map Region Zuid-Nederland Noord-Brabant Zuidoost-Noord-Brabant Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact J.M.R. Debeij (Mr.) Principal investigator Sandra Hofmann Boss (Dr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITEIT EINDHOVEN Netherlands EU contribution € 1 496 859,00 Address GROENE LOPER 3 5612 AE Eindhoven See on map Region Zuid-Nederland Noord-Brabant Zuidoost-Noord-Brabant Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Administrative Contact J.M.R. Debeij (Mr.) Principal investigator Sandra Hofmann Boss (Dr.) Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Total cost No data
