InSphero to Present Novel 3D Human Liver Fibrosis Model at Annual Liver Meeting® in Washington, DC.
The new 3D InSight™ Human Liver Fibrosis Model represents a powerful tool for screening the efficacy and safety of anti-fibrotic drugs in vitro.
Schlieren, Switzerland - October 18, 2017 - InSphero AG, the leading supplier of assay-ready 3D cell culture models for accelerating drug discovery and development, will present data characterizing and demonstrating the utility of its new 3D InSight™ Human Liver Fibrosis Model for screening efficacy of anti-fibrotic drugs. The findings will be presented in a poster presentation this Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease (AASLD) Conference in Washington, DC.
Anti-fibrotic therapies aim to inhibit the activation of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), thereby preventing excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, such as collagen, which can lead to cirrhosis and liver failure. The InSphero 3D InSight™ Human Liver Fibrosis Model is unique in that it contains all liver cell types necessary to mimic fibrosis in vitro in a high throughput, screening-compatible platform.
InSphero Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Patrick Guye says, “Our 3D human fibrosis model is composed of primary human liver cells, including HSCs, hepatocytes, Kupffer cells, and liver endothelial cells, all of which are required to accurately reflect the clinical fibrotic disease state in a cell culture model. Treatment of the model with TGF-b1, a known inducer of HSC activation, was shown to trigger strong induction of pro-fibrotic gene expression and ECM protein accumulation in the microtissue, resulting in collagen deposition and diminished hepatocyte function, both hallmarks of liver fibrosis. Even more promising, we were clearly able to demonstrate successful inhibition of disease progression on a phenotypic and transcriptional level using drugs known to interfere with pro-fibrotic signaling pathways.”
Dr. Jan Lichtenberg, InSphero's Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, notes, “These findings support the power of our model to help drug discovery groups meet the demand for safer, more effective anti-fibrotic drugs. The initial feedback from beta testers within major pharmaceutical groups with fibrosis programs has been overwhelmingly positive. Not only does the model overcome the lack of cellular complexity of current in vitro models, but being based on our pharma-validated Human Liver Microtissue platform, it can deliver valuable data on both the efficacy and safety of drug candidates, without the use of animal models.”
AASLD Presentation Details
Friday, October 20: 12:00 - 1:30 PM
Abstract #385: Development and characterization of a novel in vitro human liver fibrosis model for efficacy testing of anti-fibrotic drugs based on 3D Human Liver Microtissues
Poster presented by Dr. Radina Kostadinova, InSphero AG
The 3D InSight™ Human Liver Fibrosis Model is a powerful in vitro tool used by pharmaceutical drug discovery groups to test the ability of novel anti-fibrotic drugs to prevent induced accumulation of collagen protein (green staining) within microtissues derived from primary human liver cells (blue DNA stain).
