Researchers at Brown are leading the charge toward the development of safer and more effective drug therapies.
Division of Biology and Medicine
Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing
Technologies
Center faculty use state-of-the-art technologies to advance scientific discovery.
Technologies
Center faculty use state-of-the-art technologies to advance scientific discovery.
89%
New drugs fail in human clinical trials
3
Years needed to test toxicity of one chemical in animals
3D microtissues mimic the function, morphology and cell density of natural tissues and organs and so provide a platform for the development of more predictive assays for drug discovery and toxicity testing.
Investigators in the Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing are developing new and exciting ways to visualize and explore 3D images of microtissues.
To improve our fundamental and quantitative understanding of tissue assembly, the Darling lab is using their hypercompliant microparticles to study how cellular-level forces change as human adult stem cells undergo mesenchymal condensation and maturation in 3D microtissues.
Virtual reality allows investigators to immerse themselves into a multi-dimensional environment and to explore and probe the 3D architecture of the cells of a microtissue.
Researchers led by Professor Jonghwan Lee are developing 3D microscopic imaging and image processing technologies for label-free assessment of the viability of cells in 3D microtissues.