• What is the problem/issue being addressed?
In Europe, we estimate that over 80 million people are affected by blood disorders. Among them, blood cancers (leukemia) are by far causing the highest mortality. When at all existing, treatments are poorly effective: 92% of new drugs successful in preliminary testing fail once applied to the patient. We thus need new methods to study blood cancers and test drugs in a relevant manner.
• Why is it important for society?
The burden of blood cancer for the society is enormous. Since treatments are often non-existing or not efficient enough, most cancers are still lethal. In addition, the time and costs associated with new treatment development is substantial. Developing new technologies allowing to better understand blood cancers and test drugs in a faster and cheaper way would be of high benefit to the society.
• What are the overall objectives?
hOssicle has for objective to develop miniaturized human bone organs which can be used to study blood cancers and test drugs in a relevant manner. In fact, blood cancers emerge in our bone marrow which is contain in our bones. If we can replicate the environment in which those blood cancers naturally develop, we can better predict their behavior and compile knowledge for better treatments. This is the key objective of the hOssicle project, whereby we are using patient cells to build mini-bones define as ossicles. Within these ossicles, the patient cancer cells develop, and we can expose the tumor to various drugs and assess the efficacy of it.
