MIVO® – Webinar
27th Mar 202510:00 AM – CET
Oral Mucositis-on-a-Chip: A Multi-Factorial Strategy to Chemotherapy Modeling and Bacterial Exposure
Head and neck cancer (HNC) therapies such as chemotherapy can greatly damage the oral mucosa lining leading to debilitating and painful oral mucositis (OM) lesions. Current treatments are mainly palliative and rely on the use of systemic growth factors that have been discontinued by many drug regulatory agencies in the EU and Asia; hence, these patients end up with a very poor quality of life. In the last 12 years, our research team has developed biofabrication protocols of oral mucosa epithelial 3D sheets that can be quickly assembled with magnetic 3D bioprinting and provide remarkable viability and functionality for future drug screening and discovery platforms. Recently, we have created with the support of React4Life a dynamic millifluidic system that can generate an oral mucositis disease model from bioprinted oral epithelium after 5-fluorouracil (or 5FU) chemotherapy drug perfusion.
This millifluidic system was based on the MIVO platform, and could integrate not only chemotherapy drugs as well as salivary bacteria. This multi-factorial modelling of the oral mucositis condition was meaningful to confirm the effects of our in-house plant-produced EGF towards the promotion of localized epithelial migration in wound healing, mitigation of oxidative stress and reduction of DNA damage.
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About the speakers
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Dr. João Nuno Andrade Requicha Ferreira is the director of the Center of Excellence and Innovation for Oral Health and Healthy Longevity and the founder of the CUDENT Bioprint 3D Lab at the Faculty of Dentistry, Chulalongkorn University. He currently holds the rank of Associate Professor. Dr. Ferreira obtained his dental degree from University Institute of Health Sciences in Portugal, and moved to the US for pursuing his graduate studies, Master and PhD in Oral Biology, at the University of Minnesota and at the UNC-Chapel Hill Schools of Dentistry. He was the first dentist to receive the Portuguese Government Ministry of Science and Technology FCT Award for his PhD project on hydroxyapatite-gelatin bioceramics for bone regeneration. After his graduation, he was awarded the NIH/NIDCR research fellowship in USA for postdoctoral training in salivary gland development and regeneration at the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. In 2014, he moved to the National University of Singapore Faculty of Dentistry to start his research work on magnetic 3D bioprinting of the salivary gland for regenerative applications. In 2018, he settled in Bangkok, Thailand, to join the Chulalongkorn University Faculty of Dentistry and develop a biobank for bioprinted organoids and fabricate new microphysiological systems focused on salivary and lacrimal glands, oral mucosa and head and neck cancers. In addition, he is developing more sustainable therapies (like plant molecular farming, etc) and drug nanodelivery systems for aging-related oral diseases. He was awarded several national and international grants and awards from Portugal, USA, Singapore and Thailand, including the 2014 Salivary Gland Young Scientist Award by the International Association for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Research (IADR), the Dental Association of Thailand Best Research Competition Award in 2023, and the prestigious Innovation in Oral Care Award in 2022 also by the IADR.
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