Scientists have developed a method to control the formation of blood vessel networks using magnetic fields, enabling the creation of vascularised human tissue models for drug testing and potentially reducing reliance on animal experiments.
The approach was developed by a team from the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the University of Warsaw, and researchers from Italy. The scientists say the technique could accelerate drug development, cut costs and support more precise, personalised medicine, according to a press release.
Their work addresses a major limitation in biomedical research: animal studies often fail to accurately predict human tissue responses, while remaining costly and raising ethical concerns. At the same time, rising rates of chronic diseases, including cancer and autoimmune conditions, are driving demand for faster and more reliable drug testing methods.
The researchers focused on improving laboratory-grown tissue models made from human cells, which can replicate disease processes in controlled conditions. A key challenge has been recreating microvascular systems that deliver oxygen, nutrients and drugs within tissues.
The team’s solution combines cell biology, biomaterials engineering and magnetic microcircuit technology to precisely control how blood vessel networks form. Their findings were published in the journal Lab on a Chip.
‘In our work, we develop microvascular systems controlled by magnetic fields, and demonstrate their applications in the engineering of tumour microenvironments and phenotypic studies of antiangiogenic or cytostatic compounds. To verify whether the designed microvascular networks exhibit the appropriate physiological characteristics, we examined the structural integrity of the microvessels in 3D and verified the presence of characteristic marker proteins of healthy blood vessels’, says the first author of the paper, Katarzyna Rojek, PhD.
The method uses endothelial cells, which naturally form blood vessels, placed on magnetic microspheres that act as “seeds.” These are positioned using arrays of micromagnets beneath a culture chamber, allowing scientists to control spacing and structure as vessels grow into interconnected networks.
The resulting systems are reproducible and scalable, making them suitable for high-throughput drug screening, including testing anticancer compounds that inhibit cell division or blood vessel growth.
‘We use our system to find the optimal spacing between cell carriers, below which neighbouring microvessels become connected and above which they remain separated, even in the late stages of culture. In the latter case, they can be treated as virtually independent biological experiments, allowing for the collective averaging of morphological features. We demonstrate that microvascular systems co-cultured, for example, with cancer cells, can effectively serve as a high-throughput platform for functional screening of chemical compounds in a full 3D microenvironment’, says Jan Guzowski, PhD, one of the principal investigators.
The team also developed automated tools to analyse the vascular structures. Antoni Wrzos, a doctoral researcher at the University of Warsaw, created a numerical method to assess networks from microscopic images, enabling rapid processing of large datasets and evaluation of drug effects.
Researchers say the technology could be particularly valuable in oncology, where drug development is complex and expensive, allowing earlier assessment of effectiveness and toxicity.
The project was funded by the Polish National Science Centre.
Katarzyna Czechowicz (PAP)
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