Project description
A new era in drug screening
Despite being at its infancy, microfluidics has the potential to become a widespread technology with numerous biomedical applications. The EU-funded COMMiT project proposes to exploit microfluidics for the high-throughput screening of large panels of drugs. Using the proprietary "free-flow textile chips" (FFTC) technology, scientists have the potential to produce 3D cell spheroids encapsulated within nanolitre droplets from a single tumour biopsy. The microfluidics platform can be employed to produce cell-based personalised models, replacing animal testing. The FFTC technology is expected to aid drug development in the pharmaceutical industry and support precision medicine.
Objective
The development of precision and personalized medicine, notably in cancer, leads to an explosion in the cost of research, clinical trials, diagnosis and treatment. It calls for a change of paradigm in cell-based personalized models, allowing-high throughput screening of large panels of drugs at low cost and on minute samples. We invented in ERCadg CellO a new technology “Free-Flow Textile Chips” (FFTC) proving a solution to the above problem. It allows the production of high-resolution complex microfluidic devices at very low cost using the power of the textile industry. Using this technology we developed an automated platform able to generate, from a single micro-biopsy, a large number of 3D tumor cell spheroids encapsulated within individual nanoliter droplets, and to screen them against tens of drug combinations. This platform will reduce the time, sample size, cost of screening and drugs consumption per assay by factors ranging from 10 to 1000. This will in turn replace animal testing, and allow low-cost high-content drug screening and affordable precision medicine. This new platform will be tested versus conventional techniques in a real world context, and steps towards industrialization will be taken. We shall first target the market of research laboratories and drug development in the pharmaceutical industry, but also prepare clinical applications to the personalization of anticancer treatments. Beyond this, FFTC represents a major breakthrough in microfluidics, a technological field that is currently revolutionizing biology and medicine. Currently its democratization and societal impact are limited by fabrication costs. FFTC will overcome this barrier. COMMiT will thus pave the route to a wide range of other applications, such as “point-of-care” devices or “organs-on-chip” to replace animal testing.
Fields of science
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacydrug discovery
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsmicrofluidics
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringtextiles
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespersonalized medicine
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
75794 Paris
France