We developed a 3D tissue engineered bone marrow (3DTEBM) cultures where we use primary bone marrow aspirates (including tumor cells, other accessory cells, and the supernatant of the bone marrow) from patients with hematologic malignancies to engineer a 3D tissue culture that best mimics the pathophysiology of the patients. The 3DTEBM can also be prepared from tumor cells lines co-cultured with components of the bone marrow (such as endothelial cells, stromal cells and other cells). This system provides the closest possible ex-vivo/in-vitro system to test the efficacy of novel therapeutic agents.
Drug efficacy on primary patient samples
The 3DTEBM is the first model to allow proliferation of primary patient samples ex vivo.
We provide characterization of the efficacy of new drugs in the 3DTEBM with primary patient samples. We can also screen an individual patient sample for multiple drugs and identify resistance/sensitivity.
The effect of the tumor micro-environment on the efficacy of drugs
The 3DTEBM provides a unique system to test the tumor microenvironment on the efficacy of drugs; this includes the effect of the interaction of tumor cells with other cells in the microenvironment, as well as the effect of oxygen gradients (hypoxia) on the efficacy of the drugs.
We provide characterization of the efficacy of new drugs in classic 2D cultures, in the 3DTEBM with cell lines, and in the 3DTEBM with primary patients’ cells.
The safety of the efficacy of new drugs towards normal bone marrow components
The 3DTEBM can be developed from biopsies taken from malignant and normal bone marrow.
We provide full characterization of the effect of the new drugs on the normal components of the microenvironments such as: stem cells, progenitors, and lineage cells.
Special value for immuno-therapy
The 3DTEBM provides the perfect system to test the efficacy of immuno-therapy, since it can include different components of the immune system in the culture and provides all the necessary accessory cells and soluble factor to promote immune response against tumor cells. The 3DTBM was successfully used to test the efficacy of CAR-T cells, antibody-drug conjugates (ADC’s) and immuno-modulatory drugs (IMiD’s).
We provide characterization of the effect of the immune response to tumors following the treatments with immuno-therapies.