Kirkstall is working with academia in the development of a comprehensive gut model using human cells and representative bacterial species.

Using the QV600 in liquid/liquid mode will allow for the creation of a gut model with two distinct compartments- one representing the blood, and the other the gut contents. Caco2 cells grown under dynamic conditions in the QV600 show improved TEER compared to static conditions (Giusti et al. 2014), and also show a vast improvement in viability.

We have also recently shown that bacterial viability is maintained in the Quasi Vivo® system. Current research is aimed at combining the two to create an advanced human-relevant gut model.

Giusti, S. et al., 2014. A novel dual-flow bioreactor simulates increased fluorescein permeability in epithelial tissue barriers. Biotechnology Journal, 9, pp.1175–1184.