Customer story
UNLOOC mitigates the use of animal testing in drug development
"It was a pleasure working closely with Juho in the preparation of the proposal and it was amazing how the Spinverse team delivered on point. Now, being in the project phase with a multitude of technical and admin activities running in parallel, I am grateful to have Malin as seasoned project manager at my side. I can only say Thank you!"
Dr. Claudia Gärtner, CEO, microfluidic ChipShop.
Customer story in numbers
68
Total budget M€
3
Years
51
Partners
10
Countries
Funding instrument
Chips JU
The UNLOOC project (Unlocking the data content of Organ-on-Chips) is a three-year initiative focused on creating groundbreaking Organ-on-Chips (OOC) technologies to reduce animal testing and bridge the gender gap in drug development.
Key challenges
Animal testing, critical for drug validation before human trials, faces issues such as low human applicability, excessive costs, high failure rates in clinical trials and ethical concerns regarding the millions of animals exposed to drug testing. UNLOOC seeks to improve drug testing methods using human cell models to circumvent these serious issues.
How we reached the goals
Spinverse’s health domain experts initially supported UNLOOC with project planning, consortium building and project proposal writing for the competitive KDT funding call (currently known as Chips JU). Spinverse is now continuing to support the consortium with daily administration and communication services.
Key takeaways
UNLOOC intends to demonstrate through its five use cases how OOC technology can create more effective treatments, leaving animal subjects out of the equation. The OOC systems will also model disease pathophysiology, offering a more controlled approach to drug testing. OOC technology replicates human organ functions on a miniature scale, using microfluidic channels and living cells, thus providing a potent tool for drug development and disease research.
Impact of the project
Mitigating the use of animals in drug development and tackling gender disparities in clinical research.