Developing the ECaBox involves overcoming important scientific and technical challenges since there are no current systems available to set advanced eye perfusion nor to create artificial human fluids to resuscitate organ function. ECaBox constitutes a major milestone supporting physiological eye function ex vivo for extended periods and represents a radical advance in the regenerative restoration of human organs. It promises to have a great impact on health and society through its use in regenerative medicine, in the development of cell, drug, and gene therapies as well as for organ preservation and transplantation.
Foundation of new translational research technologies
The reactivated developmental programs that lower vertebrates use to regrow a functional organ inspire regenerative medicine. Cell-based therapies have already revolutionized several aspects of modern medicine and it is widely accepted that regenerative approaches have a disruptive potential to innovate health care. However, pioneering technologies are needed to support the translation of basic research into therapeutic realities. ECaBox will have a huge impact in advancing regenerative medicine by providing an intact human organ ex vivo. The medical need for novel therapeutic strategies for blindness is enormous as current treatments are limited in scope and often do not offer curative solutions. Thus, the ECaBox helps tackle several challenges and produce:
• Novel technology to test emerging treatments.
• More predictive pre-clinical studies at significantly reduced costs. This will allow more drug candidates and approaches to be tested faster and more reliably.
• Technology expandable to other neurodegenerative diseases and ex vivo organ systems.
• Novel knowhow and technologies to support the competitiveness of European industry in regenerative medicine.
Social and economic impact of retinal regeneration
Impaired vision affects over 250 million people worldwide and 36 million are blind. As retinal degenerations are often not curable, due to the increase in the ageing population vision loss will have a major impact on individuals, families, communities, and nations unless cost-effective curative treatments become available. The market of ophthalmic drugs was $30 billion in 2016, and it is growing at a fast pace. Any new drug has to recover several billion in a time span limited by the patent duration and competing drugs on the market. Improved productivity of the drug development process by providing access to valuable human tissue with the ECaBox holds great potential not only in cost savings, but also to unleash modern translational research capabilities onto new disease areas. Further research on ECaBox will contribute to lowering the investment required for each drug reaching the market, additionally decreasing the use of animals in preclinical research.
Building leading research and innovation capacity across Europe
ECaBox has integrated current expertise in regenerative medicine at the frontier of different disciplines such as biomaterial science, stem cell biology, electrophysiology, chemical and material engineering, computational biology and modelling. Moreover, the ECaBox consortium has trained PhD students and researchers in a fertile and highly interdisciplinary innovation environment to become future technology leaders prepared to overcome the current challenges in translating basic research such as stem cell differentiation into regenerative therapies.
