Our Technology

Current in vitro models of development and disease typically fail to recapitulate the complexities of native tissue microenvironments, leading to a poor extrapolation of in vitro findings to in vivo relevance. This is a major contributing factor to the high attrition rate of new drugs moving from the lab to the clinic, leading to an estimated cost of US$2 billion to bring a new lifesaving therapy to market.

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Growing recognition of this has led to a recent interest in developing more sophisticated 3D in vitro model platforms which allow for customisation of matrix stiffness and composition. However, despite considerable research effort, no single platform has yet pulled ahead of the competition. The current market leaders in this area continue to be naturally-derived hydrogels, such as those produced from Engelbreth-Holm-Swarm (EHS) mouse sarcoma. These materials suffer from an ill-defined composition, high batch variability, and offer limited options for customisation.

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With the support of the NC3Rs, BBSRC, and EPSCR, we have developed a fully synthetic self-assembling peptide hydrogel (SAPH) platform which aims to address all the current shortcomings of available 3D in vitro model platforms. To learn more about all the ways this platform sets itself apart from the competition, see below...