News archive

With Shambhavi Dwivedi and Stefan Huijgens, the project has found its first DCs!

In a short interview, we lean more about their personal backgrounds and their expectations of the project:

Interview with Shambhavi Dwivedi

Interview with Stefan Huijgens

Welcome to the project and we wish you all the best

From the 18th to the 21st of March 2024, the Arctic University of Norway organized the first in-person meeting at the beautiful island of Sommarøy, Norway, as a joint event together with the EIC DeLIVERy consortium which has a number of overlapping laboratories.

Our freshly recruited DCs Shambhavi Dwivedi and Stefan Huijgens gave their first presentations to the delegates, as did an “honorary” DC, Øyvind Svendsen. The consortium is looking forward to more presentations from all of you at future network meetings!

There were numerous other highlights throughout the meeting. Harry Dawson from Cherry Biotech outlined all the efforts the company has made with VUB and UniBi in optimizing media within the CUBIX microphysiological system. Kajangi Gnanachandran (McTeam UiT) and Milan Lobo/Leo van Grunsven (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) separately presented their exciting collaborative work on liver spheroids built from primary mouse liver cells – the morphology and function of these are resembling livers in ways that potentially make them excellent in vitro mini-liver models. Team Bielefeld (Thomas Huser/Henning Ortkrass/Surjendu Bikash Dutta) presented a number of exciting new methodologies in super-resolution flouresence microscopy, along with Jan Schulte am Esch’s DeLIVERy team (Wolfgang Hübner / Annika Kiehl / Jasmin Schürstedt) who described their live LSEC studies with these methods. Karolina Szafranska (McTeam UiT) presented her long-term LSEC primary culture work – in her hands cultured LSEC are maintaining function beyond 12 days in culture – this is a major achievement and opens up immense possibilities for siRNA studies and similar. Jaime McCutcheon (UiT) described his work on diet-related changes in neural activity and the blood-brain barrier, and outlined planned studies of enestrated endothelium in the arcuate nucleus. Bartek Zapotoczny (IFJ) presented work on multiparametric imaging of living murine LSEC using novel atomic force microscopy methods. Lynn Butler (KTH/UiT) outlined her lab’s plans to use endothelial cell factors to improve disease risk profiling in relation to age. Karen Sørensen (UiT) described the role of LSEC in the clearance of virus and the research being done at UiT in this regard. Friedemann Kiefer (U Münster) gave an excellent presentation about oxygen tension gradients across tissues and explained the use of fluorescent hypoxia reporters in situ. Pieter de Beule (INL) showed us a fascinating combination of simultaneous and colocalized imaging with fluorescence imaging and atomic force microscopy in liquid media. Tomasz Zaba (ALM Services) demonstrated the use of smoothli.ai for image analysis. Caroline Adiels (UGot) explained her microfluidic tricks to mimic liver lobules. Morten Elde (NorI) inspired us to make money our of our IP by not ruining it with premature publications. Eelke Snoeren (UiT) was struck down with a nasty cold but managed to make a quick appearance to introduce herself and her work. Lorena Arranz (UiO) was busy with maternity leave but looks forward to joining us at the next ImAgE-D meeting. Last but not least, our Australian guests Victoria Cogger, Nick Hunt and Meng Ngu (ANZAC Research Institute) outlined their projects on ageing liver, nano-medicines and their oral delivery to the liver.

The DeLIVERy delegates gave fantastic presentations, and these were all much appreciated by all the ImAgE-D consortium, and vice versa. There were numerous extra-curricular social interactions as well.

It was a very enjoyable and successful meeting – thanks especially to all the speakers - and we all look forward to the next in-person meeting, in Krakow in a year’s time – thanks Bartek for the invitation!

Oral nanotherapeutic formulation of insulin with reduced episodes of hypoglycaemia

Injectable insulin is an extensively used medication with potential life-threatening hypoglycaemic events. Here we report on insulin-conjugated silver sulfide quantum dots coated with a chitosan/glucose polymer to produce a responsive oral insulin nanoformulation. This formulation is pH responsive, is insoluble in acidic environments and shows increased absorption in human duodenum explants and Caenorhabditis elegans at neutral pH. The formulation is sensitive to glucosidase enzymes to trigger insulin release. It is found that the formulation distributes to the liver in mice and rats after oral administration and promotes a dose-dependent reduction in blood glucose without promoting hypoglycaemia or weight gain in diabetic rodents. Non-diabetic baboons also show a dose-dependent reduction in blood glucose. No biochemical or haematological toxicity or adverse events were observed in mice, rats and non-human primates. The formulation demonstrates the potential to orally control blood glucose without hypoglycaemic episodes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01565-2://www.nature.com/articles/s41565-023-01565-2

15-18.03.2024 - the first network meeting of the ImAgE-D project! 

The meeting will be held at the Sommarøy Arctic Hotel Tromsø on the beautiful island of Sommarøy near Tromsø, Norway. 

This first in-person meeting will be combined with an annual meeting of the EIC Pathfinder project DELIVERy.

ImAgE-D kickoff meeting