FAQ

Large tissues need a continuous supply of oxygen and nutrients, as well as continuous waste removal. In the body, blood vessels perform these functions. In vitro, if a tissue relies only on diffusion from the outside, cells at its centre can become stressed or hypoxic, undergo necrosis, or fail to mature properly.

Larger tissues provide the physical space and cell population needed to support more complex architectures (e.g. cortical columns and liver zonation), longer-range cell interactions, and more reproducible functional readouts (e.g. soluble biomarker detection). This is particularly important for creating human-relevant in vitro models of organ function, disease progression, and tissue-level metabolism.

No. Small spheroids, organoids, and 2D cultures are often better for high-throughput screening. Livegrid is intended for applications where tissue depth, long-term culture, and physiological transport are more important than maximum throughput.

Through-tissue perfusion means that medium is delivered through a network inside the tissue, rather than only around it. Livegrid does this using permeable synthetic microcapillaries embedded within the tissue construct.

In current organ-on-chip systems, medium flows through channels beside, below, or around the cells. Livegrid places the perfusion network inside a dense 3D tissue. The difference lies in where the flow occurs.

Organoids self-organise, but they lack controlled internal perfusion. Livegrid provides a predefined perfusion grid (capillary grid), allowing larger, denser tissue constructs to be supplied throughout their entire volume. Organoids can still be grown within such predefined perfusion grids.

In such systems, perfusion improves medium exchange around many small spheroids. Livegrid supports the formation of a much larger tissue construct around an internal capillary network.

Angiogenic systems rely on endothelial cells to self-assemble vessels. Although biologically relevant, vessel formation is slow and poorly controlled. At present, such platforms are limited to basic tissue–vascular interaction studies and are not capable of sustaining dense tissues at scale.

Bioprinting patterns cells and materials. Livegrid focuses on internal perfusion. The two approaches can be combined: bioprinting can pattern tissue, while Livegrid can provide a predefined perfusion scaffold.

No. It is made from synthetic, permeable, biocompatible materials. It is designed to provide transport. Vascular cells will be incorporated at later stages of platform development.

It replaces the transport function for in vitro culture. It does not claim to fully reproduce all biological functions of native vasculature unless vascular cells and vascular readouts are included.

The current focus is on liver and neural tissues. However, any type of cell (e.g., cardiomyocytes, cancer cells, or kidney cells) can be used to form tissues.

This is one of the platform’s strongest features and an intended direction for further development. Immediate through-tissue perfusion is vital for generating tissues with sustained function from adult primary cells.

Yes, neural versions of the platform are being designed with integrated microelectrode arrays for chronic recording and stimulation.

Livegrid is currently available through selected collaborations and pilot projects rather than as an off-the-shelf catalogue product.