EC grant will fund development of human hepatic tissue for treating metabolic diseases or for whole-organ transplants.
A consortium coordinated by Medicyte will receive €4.2 million (about $5.2 million) in funding from the European commission’s Seventh Framework Program to develop a biomimetic liver that could be used as transplantation therapy for treating metabolic diseases such as hemophilia A, or even as an alternative for solid organ transplantation.
The Re-Liver program has been established as a collaboration between Medicyte, The Electrospinning Company, and the Universities of Manchester (U.K) and Pisa (Italy). The collaborators aim to reconstitute a standardized, reproducible bioartificial liver organoid (BLO) using healthy human liver as an architectural and biomaterial template. In addition, new diagnostic tools and further products in cell-based applications will be developed and validated. “The combination of our complimentary areas of expertise will give a deeper insight into the complex bioartificial liver design, but is also an innovative approach to develop better and quicker diagnostic tools and cell-based products,” comments Joris Braspenning, Ph.D., Medicyte CEO and CSO.
