£20m UK project to grow miniature human organs for drug testing
Scientists are developing a national library of miniature human tissues grown from NHS patients’ cells in a £20m programme designed to improve drug testing and reduce reliance on a
By The Guardian
Miniature versions of human organs and tissues are to be grown from NHS patients’ cells as part of a £20m research programme aimed at transforming how new medicines are tested.
The project will establish a research hub in Cambridge where scientists will develop organoids — tiny three-dimensional collections of human cells capable of reproducing important characteristics of organs and tissues.
Funding is being provided by the Medical Research Council, with researchers hoping the technology will improve understanding of disease, provide more reliable ways of testing potential medicines and reduce the number of animals used during drug development.
A major objective is to establish a library of standardised and scientifically validated organoids that can be made available to researchers in universities and the pharmaceutical industry.
Organoids have been under development for more than a decade and can be grown from human stem cells in laboratory conditions.
Although some can measure less than a millimetre, they are capable of reproducing important biological features of much larger organs and tissues.
This allows researchers to study how human tissue develops, responds to disease and reacts when exposed to potential medicines.
Scientists believe that could address some of the limitations of traditional laboratory experiments and animal models, particularly when results from animals do not accurately predict how a drug will behave in humans.
Matthias Zilbauer, clinical professor of paediatric gastroenterology at the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, said the programme could have a significant effect on both animal use and future drug development.
“It’s going to have a major impact on the numbers of animals used and the way we develop new drugs in the future,” he said.
The Cambridge researchers are initially concentrating on organoid models for inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
Cells donated by NHS patients can be used to grow models that retain characteristics relevant to their disease, giving researchers another way of investigating how conditions develop and respond to treatments.
The wider programme is expected to encompass a much broader range of human tissue.
Models could include heart tissue and brain cells, allowing scientists working in different areas of medicine to use standardised human-derived material in their research.
Creating common standards will be an important part of the programme.
While organoids are already used by research groups around the world, differences in how they are produced and tested can make it difficult to compare results between laboratories.
A validated national collection could give academic and pharmaceutical researchers access to models produced to consistent standards.
The technology could ultimately help researchers identify unsuccessful drug candidates earlier in development while providing better evidence about treatments that warrant further investigation.
It does not mean animal testing will immediately disappear from medical research. Organoids cannot yet reproduce every interaction that takes place within an entire human body.
However, researchers hope increasingly sophisticated human tissue models can reduce reliance on animals while improving the relevance of experiments used during the development of new medicines.
The £20m programme represents a further step towards laboratory testing based more directly on human biology, with potential implications for pharmaceutical research well beyond Cambridge.