Human tissue testing in medical and diagnostic device development

Wide Blue 23 February 2011

Wideblue and Biopta are combining their expertise to offer a medical device product design service using ethically-sourced fresh human tissue for development testing. Biopta are experts in sourcing and testing ethically donated human tissue samples.

The collaboration means that human tissue testing can be integrated throughout Wideblue’s product design process, from feasibility studies to verification testing. Wideblue and Biopta can undertake complete medical device design projects or provide specialist support to other design teams.

The use of human tissue means that design engineers no longer need to rely on oversimplified models of device to tissue interactions. By using fresh (non-frozen) tissues, reliable data can be obtained on mechanical, optical, mass transfer and fluid flow properties, and highly representative test models can be constructed.

Tissues that are available include skin, blood vessels, airways, gastrointestinal tract and bladder. Biopta already provides human tissue testing services to most major pharmaceutical companies for drug safety and efficacy and have recently seen increasing interest from medical device designers.

Wideblue and Biopta have been working in collaboration since 2004 when they designed and manufactured Biopta’s PM-1 instrument for automated analysis of the behaviour of living tissues in response to test drugs. They have since completed several confidential projects for medical device development.