Project News

B2B partners at the University of Basel have recently released a review article highlighting recent discoveries about the exquisite regulatory role of blood vessels in bone development and repair.   As highlighted by our collaborators Andrea Banfi and Nunzia Di Maggio from the Cell and Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Basel University Hospital and the University of Basel, blood vessels in…

The metastatic spread of cancer is achieved by the dissemination of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood. To date, cancer research has not paid much attention to the question of when tumors shed such CTCs. Researchers previously assumed that tumors release CTCs continuously. However, a new study by our partners at ETH Zurich, the University Hospital Basel, and the…

Progress in detection and treatment have drastically improved survival for early breast cancer patients. However, distant recurrence causes high mortality and is typically considered incurable. Cancer dissemination occurs via circulating tumor cells and up to 75% of breast cancer patients could harbor micrometastases at the time of diagnosis, while metastatic recurrence often occurs years to decades after treatment. During clinical…

The study of spontaneous breast cancer metastasis in vivo with patient-derived material generally fails to reproduce the metastatic behavior observed in patients, whereas the major metastatic site is the bone, which is indeed the target organ selected to be featured in the B2B device.  A recent study from our partners at Prof. Nicola Aceto’s lab (now at ETH Zurich) provides evidence…

Our partner React4Life has won the European Innovation Radar prize for ‘Innovative Health Tech’ for their organ-on-a-chip solution that supports the development of personalised drugs and can accelerate the development of new therapies. The European Commission has awarded prizes to some of the most promising innovations in Europe that have emerged from EU-funded research and innovation projects. The Innovation Radar is a…

Drug absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion are biological processes that involve several organs (i.e. intestine, liver, kidneys), finally determining the drug levels in tissues and thus its correct function. If not adequate, these processes can cause the failure of drugs and impair their approval. For this reason, their correct evaluation of drug metabolism is a fundamental step in the drug…

The ossicle generated by the team of Prof. Farrell at the Erasmus University Medical Center is derived from cells from patients, children who underwent surgery to have their cleft palate reconstructed. “If there are leftover bone chips from the surgery, we can then take them and isolate the marrow stromal cells. After growing these cells in the lab, we can…

In tissue engineering, the combination of multiple cell types and the employment of 3D cell culture is becoming the new norm, as it better resembles human physiology. “What makes B2B stand out among other multicellular 3D culture is the scale”, says Dr. Eric Farrell from the Erasmus University Medical Center. “In B2B the tissues have a physiologically relevant dimension (cm3),…

The ultimate goal of the B2B device is to follow the metastasis that travels from the cancer chamber to the bone. Metastatic cells substantially differ from any other cell in the ossicle; for example, they express specific markers on the surface which allow easy identification. However, the method used to detect cancer cells within the ossicle might impair the fate…

In B2B two approaches have been planned in order to generate the ossicle for the bone chamber. The first, and more standardized, consists of the generation of the ossicle in vivo (in murine models) and only later to transfer it into the dedicated chamber. This approach starts with the insertion of patient-derived chondrocytes, the cell forming the cartilage, in mice…

The B2B device is a radically new future technology that opens the way to a new type of in vitro modelling. “The device falls right in between two types of in vitro models:  the macro 3D models and the organ on a chip (OOC), which instead are on the micron scale.” says Prof. Moroni “On one hand the OOC devices…

For the third straight year, the European Innovation Council has organized the EIC Corporate Days, gathering innovative European SMEs and large corporates to take full advantage of partnering opportunities. This year, the pharmaceutical giant ROCHE was also invited to meet EIC-funded SMEs and participate in the EIC Corporate Day initiative. From 22 till 25 June 2020, a limited hand-picked number of…

In order to build the macro-network, the initial method used by the group of Lorenzo Moroni, Professor of Biofabrication for regenerative medicine at the University of Maastricht and partner in B2B, it’s a hybrid process between bioprinting and additive manufacturing. As he explains “We first create fibers that correspond to the dimensions of the vessels that we want to make….

The network in B2B mimics as much as possible the physiological vascular network found in the real tissues, both in the breast and the bone side. One of the strengths and most innovative aspects is the fact that its vessels branch out and change the diameter (see news on mesoscale). Another feature that brings the device closer to its physiological…

The macrovascular part of the B2B device is a network aimed at replicating the key features of vascular network found in our body – therefore it includes a smooth transition from relatively large vessel down to micro-vessels. “To cover the mesoscale that lies in between the macro and the micro scales, that’s where the real challenge is. In B2B, we…

The B2B device is a unique environment to study a complex process in a controlled system. In an in vivo study, for example, several factors come into play e.g. the diet of the animal, its immune system, etc., and it’s much harder to define the impact of each one of these variables. A simplified system like the B2B device helps…

The main purpose of the B2B device is to follow and dissect the steps of the metastatic process. Therefore, once some cancer cells have left the primary site, we aim to isolate and analyze their features. The main problem during this phase is that within the samples the metastatic cells are rare. “We are talking probably about less than a…

In the B2B device, just as in real life, the metastatic process starts within a primary tumor. Indeed, the device hosts a patient-derived breast cancer lesion in a dedicated chamber, which is developed by the Cancer Metastasis group led by Nicola Aceto at the University of Basel. “We designed the breast cancer chamber so that it is as close to…

While the fabrication of a self-assembled network of capillaries and an engineered macro-network is not trivial but possible, the connection between the two is a real challenge. “The macro-to-micro connection proposed by B2B is truly innovative and, to the best of our knowledge, it’s the first time that it would be implemented” explains Andrea Banfi, leader of the related work…

In B2B, both the breast tumoroid and the ossicle have their self-assembled networks of capillaries. In the first case, the tumoroid and its vascular network are generated in parallel. “We include cancer cells together with endothelial cells in a matrix of fibrin that contains growth factors for both tissues.” explains Andrea Banfi. Thanks to the biological signals, the system evolves…

As stated in the name of the project (from Breast to Bone), B2B relies on the connection between two tissues. Indeed, the two chambers, one with the breast tumoroid and the other with the ossicle, are connected with a system that resembles the physiological blood circulation, a set of vessels that brings the blood with oxygen and nutrients to the…

The B2B partner Andrea Banfi directs the Cell and Gene Therapy group at Basel University Hospital, in the Departments of Biomedicine and of Surgery. His research focus is the understanding of the basic principles governing the growth of blood vessels and translating this knowledge into the development of novel therapies. We asked him to introduce us to the concept of…

The B2B Consortium collects the excellence of several sectors, each one contributing to a specific component of the device. Only the synergy between all the parts gives life to the B2B device. The realization of the breast cancer model from a patient-derived primary lesion is led by Nicola Aceto at the Cancer Metastasis lab of the University of Basel, winner…

Unable to validate some of their hypothesis, scientists often remain with many pending questions about cancer, especially regarding the metastatic process and the failure of preclinical studies: how come that some cancer cells exit the site of origin, enter the blood flow and attack another tissue? Why certain drugs do not have the expected effect in patients compared to pre-clinical…

Research, in order to advance and fuel innovation, needs technological innovation itself. The EU-funded project B2B is doing research for researchers, to bring recent advances in fluidic systems and 3D printing to the biomedical sector. “When a new technology reaches the biomedical field, all eyes are on the technology and its advantages – but to have a successful uptake, the…

B2B it’s a Future & Emerging Technologies (FET) project. This EU-funded Programme is all about transforming advanced scientific ideas into radically new technologies for the future. As for the B2B platform, the breakthrough technology should not be incremental but truly revolutionary, changing the today paradigms. We asked our project coordinator Silvia Scaglione to describe the innovation behind B2B and why…

B2B project has officially started on July 1, 2018. During the next 4 years, the Consortium will be busy developing a novel hybrid device able to model the spontaneous breast cancer metastasis to the bone. The project has been funded for a total of 3.8M€ under the FET OPEN call of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. The full official information…