Fostering research and better understanding of cell characteristics can create a world of opportunities for health, medicine and environment. By bringing together more than 300 researchers from different disciplines, COST Action CellFit frames specific ‘organic’ 3D model production, while creating fertile ground for new EU research projects and ideas.
“Cell-based models that behave like living tissue could improve the quality of environmental and health research. They could also reduce animal testing and lead to specialist biotech industries that could provide new jobs and growth in Europe,” according to Professor Tiziana Brevini of the University of Milan.
Professor Brevini is the Chair of COST Action CA16119 ‘In vitro 3-D total cell guidance and fitness’ (CellFit). CellFit focuses on understanding how cells are organised and respond to chemical and mechanical signals to create specific types of tissue, such as liver, heart or bone. The Action, which runs from 2017 to 2021, brings together researchers from 34 countries to increase knowledge and skills to reproduce these cell systems in the lab.
Mimicking fish in Fish-AI
One of the network branches nurtured under CellFit led to the emergence of another EU funded project, Fish-AI, in 2019. This project aims at developing an artificial fish intestine to make fish- farming more sustainable. “At the moment you feed fish with fish,” says Brevini. “A realistic artificial intestine could test large numbers of alternative plant- and insect-based compounds to see how well they are absorbed before developing a product further using live fish.”
Four CellFit participants form the core of the six-member Fish-AI consortium, coordinated by the University of Milan. The University of Ghent, Belgium, and Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre in Norway complete the group.
The idea for the project arose when they participants met for the first time at an Action general meeting. “We were talking about how fish are seen as part of a healthy diet and the problem of feed in aquaculture came up,” says Brevini. Researchers from all six members bring in their own expertise and equipment to develop the artificial intestine that could address this problem.
The project has been awarded an EU future and emerging technologies (FET) grant to develop a 3D model that processes nutrients like real fish intestine cells.
Marie-Curie funding for CellFit partner
A partner of the Action, The Cell Factory – a subsidiary of Belgian company Esperite Group – is also benefiting from the research and collaboration within CellFit. The company has received new funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to support the development of the new generation of extracellular vesicle (EV)-based drugs for the treatment of strokes. In addition, the project will allow better understanding of how EVs act in the treatment of neurological diseases.
Aside from its participation in this project and CellFit, the Cell Factory is participating in another EU H2020 project SPRINT, driving research complementarily to CellFit.
Dr Marcin Jurga, R&D director at The Cell Factory and the project coordinator, says: “The funding granted to The Cell Factory by the prestigious and competitive the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme confirms the importance of EV drugs in the regenerative medicine field. This project will let us progress with the development of the EVs drug for one of the most devastating and incurable diseases. Also, we hope that this project will encourage the pharma industry, investors and other funding bodies to support the development of the EV field.”
One research network – benefits for multiple areas
CellFit could improve other research, especially in medicine. According to Brevini, “Existing 2D models – single layers of cells – don’t always reflect the responses in living systems.”
The 3D models studied in CellFit work more like cells in an animal. A transparent ‘scaffold’ from an organ stripped of its cells is repopulated with stem cells that re-create the type of tissue that researchers want to study.
CellFit is helping scientists to understand how to give stem cells the right signals to produce characteristics such as density, stiffness or surface properties that are right for the target organ. For example, a model of sensory neurons found in bones could be created to understand bone pain. “You have to give them the right stiffness so that the cells do not become bone,” Brevini says.
Possibilities for the technology in medicine and industry are endless, according to Brevini. “Technical resources aren’t the limit – it’s the brain.”
View the Action: https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA16119
View the Network website: http://cost-cellfit.eu/