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The European consortium NEOLIVER will have 10 million euros to develop the world's first bioprinted human liver for clinical purposes. Among the 12 European members of this ambitious project is the Aragón Health Research Institute (IIS Aragón), one of the main partners and the only Spanish entity, which will receive funding of almost 1 million euros.
The NEOLIVER consortium, co-financed by the European Union (EU) Horizon Europe programme and the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation, has received funding from 10 million euros to develop the first 3D bioprinted human liver with potential clinical use. Under the coordination of Utrecht University, the twelve partners – including the IIS Aragón will receive funding of almost 1 million euros – will work in the Creation of an automated production line capable of generating bioprinted livers with functional blood vesselsIn addition, preclinical studies will be carried out to verify its effectiveness in transplants.
The liver diseases They represent a major health challenge worldwide and cause around two million deaths a year. NEOLIVER's innovative approach seeks to help reduce these figures by develop a possible alternative to liver transplantation which, in the long term, could be personalized for each patient.
To achieve this, NEOLIVER focuses on five key areas These include large-scale production of organoids and support cells obtained from various donors; the use of laser technology to create liver tissue with great precision and speed; the integration of bioprinted blood vessels with those of the donor to ensure complete irrigation; the development of an automated manufacturing process under “Good Manufacturing Practices” (GMP) standards; and, finally, the preclinical validation of these livers in immunodeficient pigs (to avoid rejection) to prepare for the first trials in humans.
This project is also based on the excellent results of the EU-funded ORGANTRANS project, which developed the key technologies and concepts and successfully transplanted small liver constructs into mice. What NEOLIVER will do is Expand the boundaries of tissue engineering by automating the 3D printing process and producing larger functional tissue that can be transplanted into an animal model similar to a human patient.
On behalf of the IIS Aragón, the only Spanish entity in the consortium, The project is headed by Pedro Baptista, ARAID researcher at the Institute and member of the Translational Research Group in Digestive Pathology.“The integration of various liver tissue and blood vessel production technologies with 3D bioprinters to generate functional and transplantable human livers could revolutionize liver transplantation. If we succeed, we will be able to manufacture livers in the laboratory from the patient's own cells, in an automated way.. This will speed up the processes, allow their industrialization and reduce the cost of each liver generated, improving the situation of people on the transplant waiting list. This could represent a A real leap into the future in regenerative medicine”, notes the researcher.
With this innovative approach, NEOLIVER It could mark a turning point in the creation of bioprinted organs and thus pave the way for future advances in regenerative medicine in other organs and tissues.
