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ePaper created 2013-09-24, 11:56:35 | version 1.25.20
FRAUNHOFER PROJECT GROUP ONCOLOGY The project group ”Regenerative Technologies for Oncol- ogy“ of the Fraunhofer IGB was created in 2009 to coincide with the establishment of the Chair of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Würzburg. The project group benefits from the synergy of leveraging the re- search of the Fraunhofer IGB and the Medical Faculty of the University of Würzburg. The focus of the project group is the development of human 3D test systems for the development of cancer drugs. With primary tumor cells, tissue-specific, vascularized in vitro tumor models are established as a test system. The project group will produce human vascularized tumors utilizing the Fraunhofer IGB Cell and Tissue Engineering Department’s methodology of growing human tissue with a functional blood vessel equiva- lent in vitro. A bioreactor system will support the artificial tu- mor tissue through blood vessels as in the human body, which will enable the in vitro examination of the molecular mecha- nisms of angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and other relevant mechanisms of tumor formation and me- tastasis. Similarly, by using such tumor models, we can study how new drugs are distributed within the tumor and how they reach their target destination. With the help of these tu- mor models, we are able to create new cancer diagnostics and therapeutics that will circumvent the need for animal tests and result in validated findings that are directly comparable to human tumors in vitro. Another focus is the development of 3D in vitro generated tumor stem cell niches. Tumor stem cells are now seen as the cause for the emergence and growth of cancer. Because healthy tissue stem cells divide infrequently, they are resistant to conventional treatments with chemotherapy or radiation. This resistance complicates the treatment of cancer and can lead to relapse, a recurrence of the tumor, or give rise to me- tastases. There is evidence that tumor stem cells are protected from therapeutic attacks in their specific microenvironments, known as niches. If we can replicate this niche in vitro, target- ed therapies could be discovered, which act directly on tumor stem cells. In Germany, 450,000 people suffer and 216,000 people die from cancer each year. After cardiovascular diseases, cancer is the second leading cause of death. Cancer cells grow uncon- trollably and form their own nutrient-supplying blood vessels. Many tumors move through the blood or lymphatic system cells to distant organs and form metastases, which can often lead to incurable cancer. An important goal of our work is to therefore discover the mechanisms of cancer growth, metas- tasis, and their distribution in the human body. COMPETENCES 56