The key to cure liver diseases

There’s an increase in liver diseases throughout the world, both in animals and in humans. Think of viral infections, or fatty liver disease due to obesity. There’s an organ shortage, human liver donors are scarce, so there’s an urgent need for alternative treatments. That’s why people are investing in the type of stem cell treatments that we develop in Utrecht. We are at the forefront of research into liver diseases.

Enabling technologies

“To study liver disease in great detail, we have developed all sorts of technology, such as stem cell culture and molecular biology”, says Bart Spee, assistant professor at the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at Utrecht University. According to Spee, combining pathology with molecular biology usually leads to very interesting findings and might lead to novel treatment options. “Currently, we are working on a large project on the transplantation of adult stem cells in dogs. Once successful, this technology can be easily translated to the human clinic. In the veterinary clinic, blood based biomarkers can play a vital role in detecting the (severity) of liver diseases. We developed techniques to see what type of liver disease an animal has and can predict possible treatment outcome.”

There’s a big demand for these miniature livers from pharmaceutical companies as a lot of drugs actually get retracted from the market, because they’re toxic to the liver.

Miniature livers

Another focus point of Spee’s research is the biofabrication of a liver. Researchers of his group are making 3D printed miniature livers for toxicological screens. “There’s a big demand for these miniature livers from pharmaceutical companies as a lot of drugs actually get retracted from the market, because they’re toxic to the liver. A system to check this is needed and we think that biofabricated livers can actually solve part of this problem.”

Saving animal lives

“We are already printing these miniature livers and they function, but we want them to be as optimal as real livers. That’s the challenge, because you have to reconstruct the entire liver with multiple cell types and include microfluidics, in order to mimic the entire organ and function. Spee and his group are now optimising this, together with Jos Malda and his group. “Drugs legislation now requires animal testing, so if we would have a system that prevents the testing of a new drug in animals, that would save a lot of animal lives.”