TissueTinker: Accelerating and Revolutionizing Preclinical Oncology

Preclinical oncology is critical to cancer therapy developments, yet traditional methods—heavily reliant on animal testing—are ethically challenging and suffer a deficit in time, resources and capital. Thus, is there a method that can challenge, revolutionize, and advance preclinical oncology while being ethically proactive? In response, TissueTinker honed in on 3D bioprinting to revolutionize preclinical trials. The startup company’s proprietary technology uses tissue-specific bioinks to replicate tumours, reducing the need for animal testing, accelerating data collection, and significantly lowering costs. As the FDA supports these advancements through the Modernization Act 2.0, TissueTinker is positioned to enhance cancer research and drug development to ultimately save lives by rapidly bringing effective treatments to patients.

Why does preclinical oncology need innovation?

Oncology stands at the forefront of modern medical advancements, driving life-saving breakthroughs in the fight against cancer. Scientists continuously push the boundaries of medicine, harnessing cutting-edge technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 and personalized medicine. These innovations aren't just transforming cancer treatment—they give way to hope for a healthier and brighter future.

While the oncology market is advancing, the preclinical phase of cancer treatment R&D remains largely overlooked. The fact is, within the 97% of drugs that don’t succeed to the final stages of clinical trials, billions of investment dollars, time and resources are mismanaged in consequence. Moreover, debates often question the moral quandaries of animal testing within drug development, and for a long time, it appeared impossible to breach the traditional methods of drug trialling. But what if there was a possibility to cost-effectively innovate cancer research and drug development without challenging ethical dilemmas in medicine?

Considering the existing flaws within preclinical oncology, 3 students at McGill University, Benjamin Ringler (B.Eng. in Chemical Engineering, and M.ScA. in Translational Biomedical Engineering), Isabelle Dummer (B. Eng in Bioengineering, M.ScA. in Translational Biomedical Engineering) and Madison Santos (B. Eng in Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, M.Sc. in Biological and Biomedical Engineering) cofounded: TissueTinker.

TissueTinker has successfully engineered, without ethical paradox, the technology to redefine and advance preclinical oncology through their cutting-edge proprietary 3D tumour printing technology. Their framework utilizes tissue-specific bioinks to record a database of every tumour at every stage. This important technology alone can fasten clinical trials, improve animal welfare and save drug corporations billions in capital by adhering to time efficiency.

What is the technology?

The FDA’s approval of introducing alternatives to animal testing, The Modernization Act 2.0 (December 2024), renders TissueTinker’s technology viable for the improvement of current preclinical methodology.

The 3D bioprinting technology consists of using bioinks to replicate the molecular structure of a specific organ tissue. STEM cells, healthy cells, cancerous cells, and much more can be printed to showcase their different properties. For instance, TissueTinker's patented technology can precisely replicate Jane Doe’s right-sided liver tumour using their proprietary bioactive hydrogels to reconstruct her liver tissue and model the cancerous growth.

The hydrogel that forms the bioink is a soft material developed by crosslinking hydrophilic polymers that have the ability to retain water and expand in aqueous solvents. This composition is useful for moulding shapes, and its properties are alterable. Thus, it is ideal for tissue engineering, which is essential in the construction of tumour organoids, the 3D cellular structures made from cancerous cells. These structures facilitate more natural cell-to-cell interaction and growth that can’t be achieved in traditional 2D cell cultures or in animal xenografts, where graft materials are taken from a donor of one species and grafted onto a different-specie recipient.

“Our goal is to approximate the human biology and anatomy as close as we can. The ultimate model will always be the human, […] but with this technology, we get to see what might happen when [the drug] actually goes into the human.” – Benjamin Ringler 

This technology can replicate the critical factors involved in cancer growth and metastasis, enabling the study of how cancer cells spread from their original site to other organs. Capturing the essence of an individual tumour is crucial to the formation of a library database for all tumours, extending from the most common to the rarest tumours. Furthermore, this library also documents all of TissueTinker’s bioinks that mimic each organ’s different tissues and unique characteristics. These records target advancing all future and ongoing oncology clinical trials.

What is the scope of current preclinical oncology?

Up until now, current preclinical testing practice consists of capturing the physical and chemical factors influencing cancer growth and treatments. A notorious challenge in preclinical oncology is that late-stage clinical trials can incur billions of dollars in costs for each drug. Additionally, testing is strictly performed on animals ranging from mice to near-human primates.

The current methodology is largely dependent on time because animal testing is the sole alternative, and this dilemma relates to wasted opportunistic capital. Researchers must wait for the animal to reach a certain maturity before sick cell transfers are permittable, and only after tumour adhesion can treatment implementation and observation begin. Including the autopsy analysis, it can take months to get a handful of data.

Three core problems derive from this existing practice:

• First, only 3% of cancer therapeutics that pass phase 1 clinical testing will prosper into the market. During phase 2 of clinical trials, 97% of drugs are ineffective or cannot replace existing therapies, and this waste is equivalent to approximately $60.0 billion.

• Second, medicine has historically failed to account for patient diversity in correspondence to sex, age, race, and co-morbid traits. This poses a danger because individual patient treatments necessitate uniqueness, and current drugs and trials are not tailored to individual biological characteristics. This reinforces the need to develop further and test new drugs, consequently requiring additional investments. 

• Third, animal welfare is challenged by medical advancement needs, and animal data does not fluently translate into human anatomy.

At times, drug developers can spend up to a quarter of their careers on testing drugs. The market for medical R&D totals $250.0 billion, and $90.0 billion is dedicated to cancer drug therapy, meaning 2/3 of investments are misallocated. Moreover, drug development lasts 15 years on average, during which approximately 150.0 million patients will lose their lives. The risks are vehemently high in terms of opportunity costs, and human life can easily dissipate through extensive time progression.

How is TissueTinker revolutionizing the field?

Compared to traditional cell cultures and animal testing, TissueTinker’s bioprinted models possess the ability to 3D-replicate the chemical and physical aspects of a tumour’s microenvironment, encompassing the tumour’s growth and spread in the body. This newer methodology precisely represents the tumour’s appearance in the human body, and it increases the democratization of healthcare by testing new drug developments on cells that come from various biological backgrounds and health statuses.

This innovation revolutionizes oncology not by replacing clinical trials but rather by improving the preclinical portion. Framing the technology to mimic human cells de-risks traditional clinical trials by de-risking the transfer of drugs to humans, all while limiting the demand for animal testing. Reducing the clinical trial’s timespan to 2-3 weeks will allow data retrieval within a month, as opposed to the former, without misspending capital. Thus, TissueTinker is a pioneer in innovating biotechnology functioning at the lowest cost whilst rapidly approximating which treatments are effective.

“The hope is that by giving people a cheaper model for clinical trials, more treatments will come out of this at a faster pace and more ethically.” – Benjamin Ringler

Despite limitations in completely replacing animal testing, this technology offers a promising pathway to significantly reduce the number of animals tested, all while driving advancements that benefit patients and the future of medicine.

What does TissueTinker’s future hold?

The startup is currently focused on the replication of existing clinical results by performing retroactive blinded studies. With its operations fully transitioned to laboratory settings, the team is starting with one of the hardest cancers to treat– esophageal cancer. This process is vital to confirm its technology's potential to reliably reproduce clinical data and validate preclinical oncology.

Looking ahead, TissueTinker is poised to revolutionize the fight against some of the most challenging cancers—those that are difficult to treat, detect, or model in animals. Their upcoming focus will zero in on cancers like melanoma, prostate cancer, and ovarian and endometrial cancers, which possess characteristics uniquely tied to human biology. By targeting these complex diseases, the company aims to push the boundaries of clinical oncology.

Conclusion

TissueTinker’s innovative approach, which includes high-throughput analysis and library expansion, is set to revolutionize cancer research and treatment. By utilizing tissue-specific bioinks and developing comprehensive sample panels, they can rapidly screen potential therapies. Moreover, their expertise in mRNA technology, nanotechnology, and biotherapeutics formulation places them at the cutting edge of developing targeted therapies for rare and underserved cancers. This holistic strategy not only accelerates the discovery of new drugs but also addresses the critical need for novel therapies.

TissueTinker’s promising future signals a transformative leap in modernizing preclinical oncology to the advantage of investments in R&D, reducing reliance on animal testing and, most importantly, improving outcomes for patients enduring one of the deadliest diseases.