Humonix Biosciences, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical research company, has developed a new 3D human tissue model, called the retinal vascular dysfunction model.
Humonix’s new model is a physiologically relevant 3D model of the blood-retinal barrier. This model expresses key physiological and biological characteristics, providing a platform for testing therapies related to retinal vascular dysfunction.
Humonix’s new model incorporates two cell types, whereas most current in vitro models utilize a single cell type, thereby missing important determinants of barrier function. Humonix’s retinal vascular dysfunction model can recapitulate organ-specific vascular dysfunction, and therefore be applied to diseases such as macular edema and diabetic retinopathy.
This novel model can aid in the drug development process and expedite progress of life-changing therapies for patients living with retinal vascular diseases.
“During discussions with key opinion leaders and drug developers, we saw a trend that in vitro models and, to a certain extent, animal models are not good at narrowing down the best clinical candidates. The significant lack of models of the blood-retinal barrier that incorporate human retinal cells and mimic the pathophysiology of diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema hampers the chances of identifying high-potential candidates to move forward in the drug development pipeline. We at Humonix are proud to have engineered a 3D human tissue model of the blood-retinal barrier that can accelerate the development of new and improved therapies,” Karen Torrejon, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Humonix said.
“A reproducible and approachable model of the blood-retinal barrier needs to be more complex than a monolayer of cells; interactions between endothelial cells and pericytes are central to the development and maintenance of barrier function, a fact well recapitulated in the Humonix model.”
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