In Europe, over 80 million people suffer from blood disorders. Many of these diseases originate from our bones, where the constant production of blood cells is tightly orchestrated. When this process is dysregulated, an uncontrolled proliferation of blood cells can emerge and cause Leukemia. The treatment of such blood cancers remains complicated, due to our limited understanding of the diseases mechanisms, as well as the lack of model to develop and test treatments.
With the funding awarded by the European Research Council, the Bourgine research group will be engineering miniaturized human bone organs, called “human ossicles”. These ossicles display a similar structure and function to native bones, and can thus be exploited to better understand the mechanisms of blood formation, but also the emergence of cancers. Ultimately, their ambition to generate human ossicles from patient cells. Those could be used as a preclinical drug-testing platform for the development of personalized anti-cancer solutions.
Useful links:
Link to original news article – In Swedish
The Laboratory for Cell, Tissue and Organ Engineering
