SeCtOR ENABleRs · Standard Collagenous ORgans-on-chip ENvisaging Advanced Biological Researches

Standard Collagenous ORgans-on-chip ENvisaging Advanced Biological Researches

Sector Enablers had two main goals: one purely scientific/technological and one more related to explore and learn how an innovative product is conceived and reach the market. The scientific goal of Sector Enabler was to design, test and bring to the market a microfluidic chip containing provided of canals mimicking one main artery and two veins. The concept, based on several evidences and results present in literature, was to use biomimetic collagenous formulations able to induce the differentiation of different population of stem cells in a pre-vascularized hydrogel. The channels were designed to be immediately perfused by medium and endothelial cells and were serving as the structure from which neovascularization will originate and further penetrate within the hydrogel itself. The importance of culturing cells in 3D, as well as the positive effects of a dynamic perfusion have demonstrated to produce more relevant and reliable results and is nowadays recognized by the whole scientific community. In the last twenty years the costs associated to drug development have constantly increased. What is nowadays clear is that the traditional in vitro and in vivo models used during the preclinical trials are surpassed by other approaches. If this is true for most of the “traditional” therapeutic approach, this is much true for new therapeutic approaches like the immunotherapy where there is often a complete lack of in vitro models to predict the safety and efficacy of new molecules or engineered cells. Helping the scientific and pharmacological industry in moving into more robust and predictive in vitro models can have a huge impact for many patients waiting for more effective and safer treatments. The possibility to early detect potential clinical trial failure have also enormous advantages both for patients testing the new compounds as well as for the companies sponsoring them. The personal objectives of the ER described in Sector Enablers were broader than the mere scientific plan described above. In terms of personal achievements the ER had planned to increase several soft skills that were needed to boost his career. Those skills were including more general skills such as management of projects, human resource management, leadership but were also including a whole set of new skills that cannot be easily learn in the academic environment. Whereas indeed entrepreneurship and innovation can be easily studied in any NBA classes, when it turns to apply those rules in the real world is another story make of infinite shades of grays and that can be learned only by failing, analyzing the errors, adjust the strategy, repeating again. The main aim of the ER at the beginning of Sector Enabler was to have a deep dive into an innovative SME to understand the needs of the industrial world in order to establish in future more productive collaborations between European academic excellence and innovative European SME.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union