Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering looks for alternatives to transplants, developing materials to replace, repair, or regenerate defective tissues, overcoming challenges such as limited organ availability and chronic rejection. The group works to develop therapies using biofabricated tissues that can be applied in cardiac and dermatological dressings.

In Brazil, LNBio is one of only three Central Laboratories in RENAMA (the Brazilian National Network for Alternatives to Animal Testing), which promotes the development and dissemination of methodologies that provide alternatives to the use of animals in experimentation. As part of this effort, it develops 3D cell models for drug screening and validation, disease models, ADMETox, and organ-on-a-chip and microfluidic system models.

3D cultures provide more realistic and predictive models for study, in terms of prognostics and ability to test biological systems in vitro, demonstrating greater accuracy for reproducing experiments in vivo such as morphology, cell interactions, and specific tissue architecture.

And organ-on-a-chip technology allows researchers to study the interactions between organs and tissues, as well as the effects of medications, cosmetic ingredients, and other substances on the human body. This is done without the need to test directly on animals or humans, which represents a significant advance in ethical research.