E!2238 SCAND

Purpose and goal:

The project will develop new synthetic 3D-cell culture structures for the screening and optimization of cancer drugs. The 3D-structures are optimized based on information from studies on scaffolds from primary cancer samples. The project will develop a set of materials for 3D-printing and produce structures that mimic the microenvironment of typical primary tumors for the optimization of cancer therapies with an initial focus on CAR-T cells targeting different cancer types.

Expected results and effects:

Today, there are no model systems for the development of medicines that adequately mimic the human situation. The result is that large resources are spent on drug candidates that ultimately do not show an effect on humans. With the 3D-structures we will develop in the project, we expect to be able to mimic different types of cancer in humans in a better way than today´s models and to produce a good aid for the pharmaceutical industry for the optimization of medicines. Initially, we are targeting CAR-T cell treatments, which is a very promising and growing field.

Approach and implementation:

The work is structured in 5 work packages where 2 of these are generally oriented towards project management and dilution of results as well as business development. Development and evaluation of our 3D-structures is divided into 3 work packages consisting of one for development and production of 3D-structures, one for evaluation of cell ingrowth into the structures and one for treatment evaluation with CAR-T cells.