Animal-free testing of medicines

Work done in the lab of Dr. Prajakta Dandekar Jain at the Institute of Chemical Technology

About author

Ms. Devashree Jahagirdar is currently a Ph.D. student working under the guidance of Dr. Prajakta Dandekar and Dr. Ratnesh Jain at the Institute of Chemical Technology. She completed her post-graduation in Biotechnology from Dr. D.Y.Patil Biotechnology and Bioinformatics Institute. Devashree is an aspiring researcher with excellent mentoring and teaching skills acquired over the period. She was initially recruited on a DBT-funded project, after which she was awarded an ICMR-SRF fellowship for her Ph.D. work. Before enrolling in her Ph.D., she worked on cancer biology to understand the signaling cascade in cervical cancer and its microenvironment. In ICT, she is working on developing retina-on-a-chip and establishing a triple culture retinoblastoma model. Devashree, apart from her research work, takes time out to pursue her hobbies like bike riding, trekking, and playing outdoor sports.

Interview

How would you explain your research outcomes to the non-scientific community?

Before being tested on humans, any medicine / pharmaceutical drug has to be tested on animals to see if there is any toxicity or damage to any other organs. During this process of animal trials, many animals are sacrificed to study the implications and targets of the drug. My team and I have been developing a model that can be used to test such drugs in an animal-free environment. My lab’s efforts are to reduce these animal killings and to develop alternative models that can successfully mimic animal systems. I have demonstrated a retinal model to replace experimenting on the animal eye. Our human retina has different cells responsible for precise functions, such as photoreceptor cells for perceiving the light incident on our eyes. The second most important layer of cells is the epithelial layer, which provides nutrients to the photoreceptor cells. These two crucial retina layers were cultured in our model and tested for various parameters to validate their use in drug testing.

Fig.1 Represents the article where two crucial retinal cells are being used for mimicking retinal physiology. The cells are being cultured in a microfluidic device (retina-on-a-chip). The retinal precursor cells (purple) get their desired growth factors from the epithelial cells (peach) and further precursor cells differentiate to form retinal photoreceptor cells (green). The prototype helps us achieve a retinal co-culture that can be used for testing ocular medicines, thereby reducing animal testing and killing.

How do these findings contribute to your research area?

The proof-of-concept model developed validates the possibility for us developing sensitive organs or tissues-on-a-chip. This study gives us hope that we can achieve individual organs that can be developed on a chip for understanding drug effects on multiple target sites in the coming years. Also, we can eliminate animal studies and move flawlessly towards personalized medicine after achieving different organs on a microfluidic chip.

“This study gives us hope that we can achieve individual organs that can be developed on a chip for understanding drug effects on multiple target sites in the coming years.”

What was the exciting moment during your research?

There is no such one exciting moment in research. The term eureka is overrated, and for all the researchers, every small analysis and every smaller result excites them to perform more. In my case, even a single success in conducting a computational run or any cell imaging used excites me. I have been performing confocal laser scanning microscopy for years, and even today, the way my cells look after tagging with multiple fluorophore molecules brings out the child in me. This area is so nascent and thriving that it catches the attention of all the fields of science. The interdisciplinary domain allows us to interact and learn about other fields, which I find exhilarating.

What do you hope to do next?

I wish to keep studying and contributing to organ-on-a-chip research. There are many things that I would like to explore in the organ-on-a-chip domain, and there is no end to it. Continuous modifications and advancements are an inherent part of this field, and I strongly hope to be a part of this research sector and give my most to it. I would like to further make advancements in the model I have developed to make it robust. I am still trying to use stem cells to make the device comparable to humans. I actively am and would like to keep working on inducing disease in such models so that we make advancements in discovering and developing more therapeutic options.

Where do you seek scientific inspiration from?

Researchers need daily inspiration. I feel that curiosity keeps me inspired and motivated all the time. The way I set my experiments, knowing that something be it ordinary and expected or extraordinary and surprising, maybe the outcome keeps me going. Research is all about harnessing curiosity and channeling it to achieve what you want.

How do you intend to help Indian science improve?

Putting young minds to work in the right direction is what improves science. I believe Indian students and researchers like us must address every why’s and how’s. To start with, I would like to document every smaller or more significant scientific finding in terms of a journal publication or promoting it as a magazine article or even a small video. This way, Indian research will find its way to reach and gather attention. Also, this will help us get infrastructurally rich.

Reference

Jahagirdar D, Yadav S, Gore M, Korpale V, Mathpati CS, Chidambaram S, Majumder A, Jain R, Dandekar P. Compartmentalized microfluidic device for in vitro co-culture of retinal cells. Biotechnol J. 2022 Jun 2:e2100530. doi: 10.1002/biot.202100530. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35652558. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35652558/

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An experienced Biomedical scientist with focus on inflammation research, Dr. Vikram Gujar is working as a postdoc at Northwestern University, Chicago. Besides science, he enjoys hiking, cooking and playing Bansuri

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