Florian Fuchs, Novartis, Basel
Three dimensional (3D) cell culture is considered clinically more relevant in mimicking the physiological environment of diseased and healthy tissues. The development of Ultra-low attachment (ULA) plates for generation and cultivation of spheroid cultures has greatly enhanced the assessment of the value of spheroidal cultures in screening.
Some disease models likely request implementation of cell patterning or engineered cell architecture rather than a self-organization of the multicellular environment. Those models have specific needs towards the use of the extracellular matrix (ECM), the interaction and exchange in between the different cell types and may respond towards induced extracellular influences such as shear stress or mechanical stretching. Development, optimization and characterization of these models and adaptation to an automated setup is challenging in many ways. In this presentation, I am sharing explorative activities on model development and provide insights how we adapt existing technologies to enable implementation of perfused advanced co-culture models for screening.
