Evidence and validation
The animal testing stage is considered to be vitally important in testing drugs, chemicals and cosmetics designed for use on humans particularly as many of the current in-vitro assays available do not provide a complete picture of whole body response. This is because they are limited by their incomplete modelling of cell-to-cell interactions.
There have been cases where drugs such as Vioxx and TGN1412 successfully passed through in-vitro and animal testing, and then clinical trials only to reveal serious toxicity and side effects on humans.
The Quasi-Vivo® MCmB reactor is designed to mimic cross talk between cells and tissues to represent a more realistic physiological environment.
Experiments have been conducted by Kirkstall to test the dose response rate of rat hepatocyte cells to diclofenac in the Quasi-Vivo® system compared with static moncultures. Firstly the vitality of the cells was enhanced in the bioreactor and secondly the IC50 value of Diclofenac – ie the concentration at which the drug is identified as being 50% viable, was much reduced, thus correctly identifying it as a risk drug.
The Quasi-Vivo® system amplifies the response or sensitivity of the cells and brings the culture environment much closer to their in-vivo habitat.
For further information see our Publications
A Low Shear Stress Modular Bioreactor Mazzei 2010
Study of the crosstalk between hepatocytes and EC 2009
A High-Throughput Bioreactor System 2008
Cell cross-talk analysis in static and dynamic
Importance of Medium Flow for in vitro Culture of Human Hepatocytes