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With their bioprinting technology, Canada’s Aspect Biosystems is working towards the noble goal of “a future where doctors determine which drugs work for their patients before prescribing them, where animals are no longer needed for the development of new therapeutics, and where lifesaving transplant organs are created, not harvested.” This is a goal not dissimilar to the only publicly traded bioprinting company, Organovo, and, while Organovo just raked $40 million through a secondary stock offering, Aspect Biosytems is raising its own funds through a recent “oversubscribed” seed round from local Vancouver Angel investors.
Aspect Biosystems was spun out of the University of British Columbia in 2013 to begin 3D printing human tissues for drug testing and, eventually, organ printing. One company presentation (PDF) outlines the differences between their bioprinting tech and that of Organovo. Unlike Organovo, which relies on multiple syringes with pre-prepared bioinks, Aspect Biosystems is in the process of developing a 3D printing technology that contains everything necessary to print tissues within the system itself, including cell types and growth factors, so that all tissues can be deposited from a single, modular printhead. This, they believe, will allow them to create a wider variety of tissues more quickly and more realistically.
At the moment, the company has one 3D printed tissue product, the 3DAirwayALI™, with which the startup offers testing services. The tissue is a replication of the human airway using two types of cells, epithelium and fibroblasts. Demonstrating 100 days of survival in the lab, 3DAirwayALI™ is uniquely designed for the study of chronic diseases. The company says a “top pharmaceutical firm” is already using the product to study idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a life-threatening illness with treatment often limited to lung transplant.
CEO Konrad Walus says of the investment, “We deeply appreciate the support of Vancouver’s Angel investors who moved quickly to subscribe to this financing and we are very excited to take these key steps toward realizing Aspect Biosystems’ bold vision.” Todd Farrell, President of the entrepreneurship@UBC Seed Fund, contributes, “We are very impressed with Aspect’s breakthrough approach to 3D bioprinting and we believe that the company holds great potential for delivering highly advanced structured tissues in the near term.”
With the funding, Aspect Biosystems will not only be able to commercialize their first human tissue services and products, but they’ll also work towards their next generation of bioprinting technology to develop new tissue products, including a greater number of cell types. According to the company’s presentation, they are working on skin and gastrointestinal tissues in their ALI series, featuring two cell types, allowing them to study drug toxicity and absorption, as well as fibrosis. But they’re also looking to expand to the GEN1 series, which will have lateral patterning and multiple cell types for the study of the liver and heart, cancer, asthma, and toxic reactions across whole organ systems.
The biggest obstacle in bioprinting right now may be the creation of vasculature to pump blood to the 3D printed tissues, something that Jennifer Lewis, CEO of Voxel8, is exploring at her Harvard lab. Once this is achieved, Aspect Biosystems hopes to print combined tissues for the study of circulatory health, inflammatory diseases, and anything that might apply to large tissue structures. After that, the skies the limit and they’ll be 3D printing complete organs.
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