A study published in Nature Communications and led by teams from the Faculty of Physics and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) describes the development of an innovative method to control the formation of crypt-like structures and villi in the intestine using a contact protein printing technique.
Elena Martínez Fraiz, professor at the Department of Electronic and Biomedical Engineering, IBEC's principal investigator and leader of the study, says: "Our aim was to create a system that closely mimics the conditions of human intestinal tissue. This model will allow us to study in detail key processes such as cell regeneration or alterations linked to diseases such as cancer and chronic inflammatory disorders".
As Jordi Comelles (UB-IBEC) explains, "the cells we work with self-organize into different compartments that precisely replicate intestinal structures. What we achieve with our method, based on contact printing of proteins, is to control how and where these structures are formed. We do this by arranging these proteins in specific patterns, such as circles or holes".
