Innovative models that better represent the patient and replace or reduce animal experiments
Within 3R-BioMedicUS, we develop new methods to improve currently existing standards for biomedical research. These exciting applications can replace or reduce animal experiments too.
3D-BIO-printing Workshop
For example, 3D printing tiny tissue meshes and colonizing them with living human cells can replicate some of the complexity of patient samples, to answer some of the research questions that classical 2D cell culture systems would not be able to ellucidate. To aid in the explanation of these approaches, we use fun activities, such as our workshop with 3D-printing pens, for everyone, small or large, to enjoy!
Developing a drug testing platform with live tissue samples
Our so called "tissue-slice-clture" demo was explaining how we minimize animal experimentation while we also maximize the complexity of our drug testing platform, by using extremely thinly cut slices of living tissue to test individual drugs and drug combinations in a culture dish.
The SRCSB cell analytics platform was showcasing its high performance microscopes
The microscopy demonstration from the SRCSB was offering a wide variety of samples to observe under the fluorescence miscroscope, from the "tissue slices" we used for the drug testing platform mentioned above, all the way to plant rhizome structures.
A multitude of models developed for the testing of stents used in vascular research
The team from the Cattaneo Lab at BMT was providing a hands on and interactive demonstration of the different models they use for the design, development and testing of new types of stents for the treatment of blood vessel obstructions. One of the applications was the use of specifically processed plant stems to resemble the anatomy and characteristics of human blood vessels, in order to be used as more efficient models for the testing of medical devices.
