AnisoPlate

The limitations of current in vitro tissue models pose a significant challenge in drug discovery and personalized medicine, leading to inefficiencies and unreliability in preclinical testing. These shortcomings result in high costs and prolonged timelines for drug development, straining resources and delaying patient access to innovative treatments. This is mainly due to the currently available cell and tissue models based on flat petri dishes and isotropic hydrogels, which fail to accurately represent the anisotropic structures found in native tissues leading to unreliable preclinical results. Animal models, although considered the gold standard, raises ethical concerns and introduces significant differences compared to human tissues. To address these shortcomings, we have developed a hydrogel system that can be used to fabricate 3D culture models with oriented structures using AnisoPlate. The AnisoPlate is a handheld magnetic device for providing the required external magnetic field in culture plates for the orientation of the rods. The hydrogel system consists of rod-shape elements that are made magneto-responsive by encapsulating superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs). When exposed to low external magnetic fields (in the millitesla range) provided by the AnisoPlate, these rods align in the direction of the field and can be assembled into 3D macroporous oriented constructs mimicking the anisotropic architecture of human tissues. Our solution holds promise not only for researchers in drug discovery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine but also for pharmaceutical industries seeking physiologically relevant in vitro models for more accurate preclinical studies, contract research organizations (CROs) aiming to enhance their efficacy in high-throughput screening, and ultimately patients who stand to benefit from accelerated and improved drug development processes leading to innovative treatments.