Project description
Personalised organ-on-chips for drug screening in rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disorder associated with inflammation in the synovial fluid that lines the joints. Response to current drugs is far from optimal, necessitating better treatments. The EU-funded FLAMIN-GO project proposes to overcome conventional clinical trials for testing the efficacy of novel treatment modalities through the development of an organ-on-chip platform. The FLAMIN-GO approach uses patient biopsies to construct 3D models which mimic the complexity of the RA joint and can be tailored for each individual patient. The idea is to use these models for optimal drug identification in less than 2two months, offering a faster, more cost-effective and ethically sound approach for drug screening.
Objective
FLAMIN-GO aims at developing an Organ-on-Chip technology for clinical trials on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). In RA, a number of unmet needs still persist particularly related to response/non-response of powerful but expensive drugs. Conventional clinical trials may address part of these challenges, but are time consuming, expensive and ethically ethically doubtful as part of the patients still fail to achieve disease benefits. Thus, the rheumatology community has a need for an alternative strategy that can deliver innovative trials.
FLAMIN-GO develops a personalized next-generation synovia-on-chip, that, by effectively mimicking the complexity of RA joint, will allow performing personalized clinical trials-on-chip. The solution will be based on design and fabrication of a multi-compartment microfluidic platform, for 3D culturing and perfusion of all the disease-relevant joint tissues. It focuses on synovia and synovial fluid, which are the pathogenetic targeted tissues, but including immune system, who sustain the disease, and cartilage and bone which are the end damaged tissues, leading to permanent disability. Starting from individual patient biopsies, this model seeks to replicate RA joints, thus allowing to test and allocate the best on-market drug for that patient in 1-2 months starting form biopsy. When validated, the platform will also be a turning point for i) pharma by enabling screening of new drugs reducing costs, time, and animal testing and for ii) translational research for identification of new biomarkers or therapeutic targets.
FLAMIN-GO consortium features a strong, well-balanced composition of hospital, academia and industry partners, who cover with complementary expertise the whole value chain. It gathers experts in the fields of rheumatology, material science, tissue engineering, nanotechnology, cell biology and 3D modelling, in a cohesive, transdisciplinary, multi-sectorial approach taking on the challenge to drive RA personalized care.
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Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
13100 Vercelli
Italy