Daniel G. Anderson

Smart Materials for Medical Devices and the Delivery of Cells, RNA and genome Editors

Medical devices have revolutionized healthcare, with advanced biomaterials enabling groundbreaking treatments. One innovation involves materials that hide from the immune system and facilitate therapeutic cell transplantation without immunosuppression. Another transformative area is nanoscale drug delivery, where nanoparticles—such as the lipid-based RNA carriers used in COVID-19 vaccines—enable precise intracellular drug targeting. Beyond vaccines, these technologies hold vast potential for genetic therapies, offering new ways to prevent, treat, or even cure diseases. This presentation explores the development and broader therapeutic applications of nanoparticles and RNA in human therapeutics, highlighting their promise in addressing a wide range of diseases.

Daniel G. Anderson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology USA)

Peter Ertl

Organ-on-a-chip Technologies: in vitro veritas?

Organ-on-a-chip systems contain living human cell cultures that are grown in a dynamic microenvironment under controlled physiological conditions. These microphysiological systems allow biological, chemical and physical manipulation and analysis of organotypic structures. The reliable establishment of human tissue structures on a common chip platform has shown the potential to reduce and replace animal testing in basic and applied research as well as industrial QC measures. Additionally, organ-on-a-chip systems are used to establish personalized disease models with the aim of providing clinical-relevant information from a patient’s own cells to provide targeted therapy options. In this presentation the current state-of-the-art and selected applications of organ-on-a-chip systems will be introduced.

Peter Ertl (Technical University of Vienna)

Johannes Hackethal

Humanizing Cell Culture

Cell culture research, the foundation of many medical applications, often relies on animal-derived materials, which poorly represent human biology. Human placenta, a scalable source of extracellular matrix (ECM) without ethical concerns, offers a promising alternative. Using human ECM proteins reduces animal testing, improves scientific accuracy, minimizes false results, and accelerates translation from research to patients.

THT Biomaterials aims to establish a placenta-based protein platform to replace animal-derived materials and humanize cell culture. By extracting human ECM using enzymatic and non-enzymatic buffers and comparing its performance with animal-derived biomaterials in 2D and 3D cell cultures, significant differences in cell viability, growth rate, and phenotype could be observed, demonstrating the impact of biomaterial choice on in vitro outcomes.

These findings suggest that human-derived ECM enhances the relevance of cell culture models, paving the way for further development of personalized medicine for the future.

Johannes Hackethal (THT Biomaterials, Vienna)

Linda Waldherr

Localized Cancer Treatment with Iontronic Devices: Continuous Chemotherapy and Triggered Release of Therapeutics

The effectiveness of chemotherapeutic agents is often limited by poor delivery and systemic toxicity. Iontronic devices offer a promising solution, enabling localized, high-resolution drug delivery. Two approaches are demonstrated: direct iontronic chemotherapy and a “click-to-release” mechanism for triggered release of potent chemotherapeutics. In a brain tumor model on a vascularized membrane of a chick embryo, iontronic chemotherapy induced cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and tumor growth inhibition, outperforming other control treatments. For the click-to-release system, tumor cells were treated with a biocompatible prodrug, activated only upon delivery of a trigger molecule via iontronics. This approach achieved controlled, on-demand toxicity, with precise regulation of cell killing.

Linda Waldherr (Medical University of Graz)