I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Cell Culture Platform to Model Dynamic Drug Concentrations In Vitro

I-Corps项目更广泛的影响是开发一个自动化细胞培养平台，以提高临床前药物测试的预测准确性。这一创新有望使测试潜在新药的过程更便宜、更快、更有效。通过模拟人体内药物浓度的变化，该技术可以在药物开发的早期更好地预测安全性问题和治疗效果。这种自动化系统提高了研究效率，从而降低了药物开发成本，为药物开发人员和患者节省了资金。这个I-Corps项目利用体验式学习和对行业生态系统的第一手调查来评估该技术的翻译潜力。该项目基于一种自动化仪器的开发，该仪器可以随着时间的推移精确调整细胞培养皿中的药物浓度。这项技术建立在先前的研究基础上，这些研究表明，细胞会根据暴露的速度做出不同的反应。该系统将用于在药物治疗过程中复制人体细胞的药物暴露。目前，如果不使用预测性差的动物研究或昂贵且耗时的器官芯片实验，这些实验获得的信息是不可能获得的。该系统有望通过提高早期药物筛选的生产力和预测准确性来加速药物开发。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact of this I-Corps project is the development of an automated cell culture platform to enhance the predictive accuracy of preclinical drug testing. This innovation promises to make the process of testing potential new medicines cheaper, faster, and more effective. By mimicking the changes in drug concentration that occur in the human body, the technology can better predict safety issues and treatment effectiveness earlier in drug development. This automated system improves research efficiency, resulting in lower drug development costs, saving both drug developers and patients money.This I-Corps project utilizes experiential learning coupled with a first-hand investigation of the industry ecosystem to assess the translation potential of the technology. The project is based on the development of an automated instrument that can precisely adjust drug concentrations in a cell culture dish over time. The technology builds on prior studies showing that cells respond differently depending on the rate of exposure. This system will be used to replicate the drug exposure of cells in the human body during the course of drug treatment. Currently, the information gained by these experiments is impossible to attain without the use of poorly predictive animal studies or expensive and time-consuming organ-on-a-chip experiments. The system promises to accelerate pharmaceutical development through enhanced productivity and predictive accuracy of early-stage drug screening.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.