Arturs Abols
Head of the Lab-on-a-chip in the extracellular vesicle research group, Latvian Biomedical Research and Study Centre, Riga, Latvia
Arturs Abols is Early Career Investigator and head of Lab-on-a-chip in the extracellular vesicle research group at Latvian Biomedical research and study center. The main goal of his group is to study potential applications and modifications of extracellular vesicles (EVs) from different sources, such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) and microbiota in cancer treatment using Lab-on-a-Chip (LoC) including Organs on Chip (OOC) technology. This interdisciplinary research direction stems from his postdoc in EV field as cancer biomarkers and recent collaboration with the Laboratory of prototyping from Institute of Solid-State Physics with expertise in microfluidics and biosensors. This research direction and collaboration also resulted with company CellboxLabs establishment, that focuses on PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane) free organs on chip technology development, where Arturs Abols is cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer. He has PhD in molecular biology and more than 10 years of experience in cancer research and EV field.
Mesenchymal stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles as a drug carrier in
DMS-free lung cancer-on-a-chip
Lung cancer is the most common cause of death with more than 50% lethal prognosis in the first year after diagnosis and the 5-year survival rate less than 18%. Although several treatments are available, they are usually not cancer cell-specific and often leave the patients struggling with unwanted side-effects. Studies of mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) extracellular vesicles (EV) suggest that they have tumor tropisms and can be used as drug carriers to become modern drug delivery systems to cancer cells. Lung cancer-on-a-chip (LCoC) systems are novel vascularized in vitro model system with liquid flow to mimic drug delivery trough circulation and study cancer tissue response. Currently available LCoC models are developed from PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane), that is not suitable for drug testing since it absorbs small molecules. Therefore, we established new LCoC model from thermoplastics to study MSC derived EVs loaded with cisplatin in comparison to EVs without cisplatin and cisplatin alone. LCoC was established by using stable cell line A549 and commercial primary cell line - HPMEC (Human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells). Cisplatin loaded MSC EVs were produced from immortalized commercial adipocyte derived MSC – ASC52-telo by growing them in media with nontoxic cisplatin concentration. Cisplatin loaded EVs were administrated within endothelial channel of LCoC and compared between MSC EVs without cisplatin, cisplatin without EV and negative control within previously optimized flow. Cell viability, biological barrier integrity and migration was evaluated by different assays. Preliminary results showed that cisplatin loaded EVs do not decrease biological barrier integrity and decreased A549 cell migration to endothelial channel suggesting, that cisplatin loaded EV could potentially decrease chemotherapy effect on endothelial cells, while final results will be presented at conference.
