Leiden, the Netherlands, July 2019 - Seven projects in the Organ-on-Chip Showcases call have been awarded a grant by Top Sector Life Sciences & Health (LSH). The substantial investment of 2.76 million euros brings together knowledge institutions and companies from the Netherlands and abroad in joint projects. A total of eight companies, seven different knowledge institutions and one foundation have joined forces in these projects.
Being one of the eight companies, Ncardia participates in the project “Growing real human small blood vessels in the laboratorium” in collaboration with Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research and Mimetas. The aim of this project is to develop a next generation capillary-on-a-chip model to study mechanisms underlying small blood vessel loss in disease such as ‘heart failure with preserved ejection fraction’. The complex blood vessel model will also provide means to assess drug-induced vascular leakage or to identify and validate targets for treatment of a variety of other diseases involving the cardiovascular system. For example the formation of new blood vessels has been identified as an important target for treatment of cancer. Ncardia’s iPSC-derived endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells in combination with their high quality platform for large-scale and robust manufacturing are crucial in modelling true physiological capillaries and will allow high throughput application for drug discovery.
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About Ncardia
Ncardia is convinced that stem cell technology will help give patients faster access to better and safer medicines by improving the drug discovery and development process. As a partner research organization (PRO) they develop human cellular (disease) biology in optimized assay systems to enable safety and efficacy testing with a better translation into the clinic. Ncardia is based in Belgium, the Netherlands, and the USA.
Interested to read more on this project? Find information here: Growing real human small blood vessels in the laboratory – Ncardia, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research, Mimetas.
Source: Health~Holland https://www.health-holland.com/news/2019/07/organ-on-chip-showcases