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- 3D Bone and Cartilage Models to Understand Tissue Regeneration
3D Bone and Cartilage Models to Understand Tissue Regeneration
Good morning, pioneers!
This is The Future of 3D Cell Culture. The #1 spot for 3D cell culture science and innovation.
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Getting into shape!
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KEY OPINION LEADERS
Why Do Certain Tissues Fail to Heal?
This month, we sat down with Dr. Johanna Bolander. Dr. Bolander has a PhD in Regenerative Medicine from K.U Leuven and a postdoc at the MERLN Institute of Technology in Maastricht, as well as the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina.
Currently, she is an Assistant Professor at Charité Hospital in Berlin, as well as a Principal Member of the Technical Staff at imec.
Dr. Bolander is an expert in bone and cartilage tissue and uses 3D models to investigate why certain tissues fail to heal. Her joint positions give her the unique opportunity to develop solutions from both a biological and technical perspective.
Using 3D cell models to investigate bone and cartilage tissue repair
What are some of the current research questions that you're diving into at the moment, and how are you using 3D models to answer them?
Dr. Bolander: The big question that we have is: “Why do certain injuries fail to heal?”
This can sometimes be easily explained for certain injuries because it depends on the injury type and the tissue or the organ they're affecting. My two favourite tissues are bone and cartilage.
Bone is one of the unique tissues that can heal without scar tissue formation. You can have a complex fracture but, within a couple of months, you will have beautiful regeneration. In an ideal setting, you won’t see that it ever was broken.
Cartilage, on the other hand, is very limited in terms of regenerative capacity.
It's interesting to study these two tissues in compromised conditions and see what goes wrong when an injury fails to heal.
I have a background in working with preclinical animal models. There you have some ability to get a systems’ understanding, you have an in-vivo environment, but it’s still far away from human.
Human tissues are always the main tissue of interest.
The problem is that you can only get human tissues at certain times. This is why I find bone and cartilage very interesting, as certain surgical interventions enable access if you have clinical approval for them and a surgeon that is willing to work with you.
If you then use these cells to form in-vitro microphysiologial systems or organoid models, you can study the factors that are going wrong. This allows us to take the material and what we know from the pathophysiological process that we’re studying and model it in-vitro, and then dynamically monitor cellular communication at the single-cell and at the tissue level.
You need both because they're typically unique cell populations that are driving certain processes. If you only use histology or immunohistochemistry from animal models or tissue samples, it will be challenging to gain this detailed mechanistic understanding.
This is why I'm extremely fond of the 3D models.
What has your research shown are some of the underlying causes for failed tissue repair?
Dr. Bolander: This can be a patient background. Age, for instance. We know that as we age, we lose our regenerative capacity to a certain extent. This can also be affected by:
Lifestyle
Gender
Genetic background
It's something that you can easily stratify when you're selecting your patient groups. You can look at certain factors and how they affect the cells and tissues’ ability to withstand stress, certain trauma indicators, or replications.
Merging biology and technology to make 3D cell models accessible
You wear two different hats: Your Assistant Professor position in Berlin and your position as Technical Staff Member at imec.
What do those positions entail, and how do they overlap or complement each other?
Dr. Bolander: I live a dream life. If you are in the area of 3D models, you know that both biology AND technology are crucial, and typically people’s focus is restricted to one of them.
Imec is one of the world-leading institutes for nanotechnology solutions with a big arm in life science and health technology. Charité, on the other hand, is one of the largest hospitals in Europe that has a heavy focus on clinical research.
The clinicians who work there are research-minded and interested in collaborating. They don't mind walking the extra mile so we can get tissue samples. They're also interested in the outcome, so we make sure that we can use the findings we produce for translational purposes so that one day we can go back to the patient.
With these two settings, I have a team that is focused on technology development and a team that is focused on the biology that can collaborate. We have meetings together so that both teams can learn from each other. This makes us strong because both groups can have their focus, but they have a natural way of meeting each other.
How do you think the requirements for working with 3D models differ between a pharmaceutical drug development setting and your regenerative medicine setting?
Dr. Bolander: I think it's very similar to the situation with biology and technology. At the moment it's two very different things. I think we are learning that biology is not so easy, so drug screening needs to be done on more complex models. Not necessarily complex 3D bioreactor systems, but even if it's just 3D aggregates or organoids, they need to represent the right compartments from physiology.
On the other hand, we also need biological models to be relevant so that we can gain enough input from different patient populations, because we know that what happens in one patient may not be the case for another.
High throughput and added complexity are needed in both cases. We need to find a match between the two aspects.
The moment we can monitor physiologically relevant organoids in high throughput is when we will get a better understanding of why certain individuals respond to certain therapeutics, trauma, and other events.
The benefits of using 3D cell models when studying bone and cartilage tissue repair
When it comes to your cartilage and bone models, what information do 3D models give you that you can't get in 2D?
Dr. Bolander: The complexity. Both cartilage and bone are structured tissues. If you just have one layer, it's just one part of the tissue. In biomechanics, this plays a huge role. This is true anywhere in the body, but especially for bone and cartilage because they are weight-bearing organs.
This is something you can’t replicate in the 2D model. You need the 3D structure, and we see that this affects healing and homeostasis. It's something that you can absolutely not ignore in my mind.
Read Dr. Bolander's full interview here.
Dr. Bolander is always interested in finding new collaboration partners who want to investigate tissue healing. Sound interesting? You can find her here: LinkedIn: Johanna Bolander |
Photo by Product School on Unsplash
EVENTS
Don’t miss out on these upcoming events in the 3D cell culture space:
3D Cell Culture 2025: Functional Precision Medicine (Freiburg, DE |8-10 April, 2025)
Focused on Functional Precision Medicine, this event brings together international experts to explore cutting-edge 3D cell culture technologies and their applications in cancer, metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and more.
Expect dynamic discussions, exciting pitch presentations, networking opportunities, and an extensive exhibition.
Whether you're in research, clinical work, or industry, this is a fantastic opportunity to dive deep into medical innovation.
Next-Gen Organ-On-Chip & Organoids Workshop (Zurich, CH |13-14 February, 2025)
This exciting two-day event focuses on translating cutting-edge organoid and organ-on-chip technologies into clinical and drug development applications.
With keynotes by Fanny Jaulin, PhD, and Jürgen Knoblich, PhD, you'll learn how these innovations are revolutionizing personalized medicine and brain disease modeling.
Network with top experts from the pharma, biotech, and research sectors, and explore the future of in-vitro models.
World Organoid Research Day (Cambridge, UK |11-13 February, 2025)
This conference is dedicated to the latest scientific achievements and bioengineering breakthroughs by pioneers in the MPS field. The event is organized by the International MPS Society.
For more information, please visit their event page.
That’s it for this month!
Merry Christmas, and see you again in the New Year 🎄!
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