Development and characterization of an organoid system made up of liver cells as potential model for photobiological experimentation

• Grant number: 23/04119-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2023
• End date: October 31, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Biomedical Engineering - Bioengineering
• Principal Investigator: Fernando Lucas Primo
• Grantee: Ramon Botelho Costa
• Supervisor: Tiago Paulo Gonçalves Pinheiro Fernandes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Farmacêuticas (FCFAR). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal
• Associated to the scholarship: 22/11326-3 - Synthesis and characterization of doxorubicin and quinizarin nanoemulsions for synergistic application in Photodynamic Therapy in 2D and 3D models of oral epidermoid carcinoma, BP.IC

Abstract

Currently, cancers still persist as one of the diseases that cause the most deaths in the world, oral cancers, culminating in approximately 145 thousand deaths annually when they come from oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC), due to its high complexity and resistance capacity, these carcinomas, make the therapy process difficult, which usually requires surgical interventions associated with conventional approaches, which often result in sequelae or a range of extremely harmful side effects. Among the therapeutic alternatives that have emerged, it is worth mentioning the Photodynamic Therapy(PDT), which has a less invasive approach and has a noticeable effect on there currence of the disease when compared to surgical resections, but even so it needs to be standardized in some important aspects for the application of the technique and better induction of the therapeutic effect, one of the main limiting factors being the almost non-existence of well-defined biological or equivalent models. Thus, given the above, this project aims to develop and characterize human liver tissue in vitro, using organoidal systems as possible future models of photobiological experimentation, which will be formed by liver cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) and homeostasis analysis using 3D printer, thus aiming for models that better reflect the function in vivo and help standardize the PDT. (AU)