Visikol recognizes that no single in vitro cell culture model is able to meet the cost, throughput and in vivo relevancy requirements of every client and thus has a wide range of 2D, 3D and tissue slice models. The company is highly focused on liver and oncology models but also does a significant amount of custom model development for its clients.
HUREL® Micro Liver Models
The HUREL product portfolio of highly relevant and well-validated 2D co-culture primary hepatocyte models has been acquired by Visikol. Visikol will continue to sell the HUREL product line as well as offer the HUREL portfolio of services. Through this acquisition, Visikol now has the widest portfolio of liver cell culture assays in the marketplace and is able to meet a diverse set of cost, throughput and in vivo relevancy requirements for assessing disease amelioration (e.g., NASH, NAFLD), toxicity and metabolism.
Corning® HepGo™ Primary Human Hepatocyte Models
Visikol is agnostic to the type of models used in its assays and will routinely use models from third parties if they allow clients to best meet their price, throughput and in vivo relevancy requirements. Visikol leverages the Corning HepGo PHH only spheroids models for many of its DILI assays. These models are extremely well validated and have been compared extensively to 2D cell culture models for their use in predicting toxicity liabilities.
Co-Culture Liver Spheroids
To model NASH and NAFLD within a cell culture model, both hepatocytes and non-parenchymal cells are required and thus Visikol has developed a co-culture spheroid model which allows for the modeling of these disease pathologies. The model is able to mimic fibrosis and inflammation via both TGF-B and diet induced pathways.
Precision Cut Liver Slice Models
The most relevant 3D in vitro model that can be used is the tissue slice approach in which 200-300 micron thick sections of tissues are cultured in transwells. Visikol has developed human (F0, F1, F3, F4) liver slice models as well as rodent models (CLL4, healthy) which can be used to model NASH, NAFLD or DILI.
Oncology 3D Cell Culture Models
3D cell culture models provide a unique opportunity to mimic the spatially complex nature of tumors in vitro. Visikol is an expert in developing advanced oncology 3D cell culture models for assessing oncology therapeutics and has developed several unique spatial assays for assessing T-cell infiltration and large molecule distribution. The company is highly focused on immuno-oncology but also conducts many assays on small molecule and more traditional therapeutic approaches.
MatTek Cell Culture Models
MatTek is a sister company to Visikol as part of the BICO family of companies. As such, Visikol works closley with MatTek and routinely uses the MatTek portfolio of models within its cell culture assay services. The models are produced from primary human cells at the cutting edge of tissue engineering technology, MatTek tissue models provide a microphysiological platform to model highly-relevant and predictive human biology.
Custom Cell Culture Model Development
Visikol as a company is an expert in developing custom cell culture model and assay solutions and has experience with simple all the way to highly complex tissue slice assays. If your team requires a custom model and assay solution, Visikol can help assist with the development effort and generating a system which allows for your team to meet your specific requirements. The Visikol team can act as an extension of your research team and help you to shift to more complex and more relevant in vitro models.