MD Anderson is teaming up with TOPPAN Holdings on cutting-edge organoid tech to help match cancer patients with the most effective treatments. Photo via Getty Images.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Japan’s TOPPAN Holdings Inc. have announced a strategic collaboration to co-develop TOPPAN Holdings’ 3D cell culture, or organoid, technology known as invivoid.

The technology will be used as a tool for personalized cancer treatments and drug screening efforts, according to a release from MD Anderson. TOPPAN has committed $10 million over five years to advance the joint research activities.

“The strategic alliance with MD Anderson paves a promising path toward personalized cancer medicine," Hiroshi Asada, head of the Business Innovation Center at TOPPAN Holdings, said in a news release.

Invivoid is capable of establishing organoid models directly from patient biopsies or other tissues in a way that is faster and more efficient. Researchers may be able to test a variety of potential treatments in the laboratory to understand which approach may work best for the patient, if validated clinically.

“Organoids allow us to model the three-dimensional complexity of human cancers in the lab, thus allowing us to engineer a powerful translational engine—one that could not only predict how patients will respond to therapy before treatment begins but also could help to reimagine how we discover and validate next-generation therapies," Dr. Donna Hansel, division head of pathology and laboratory medicine at MD Anderson, added in the news release. “Through this collaboration, we hope to make meaningful progress in modeling cancer biology for therapeutic innovation.”

The collaboration will build upon preclinical research previously conducted by MD Anderson and TOPPAN. The organizations will work collaboratively to obtain College of American Pathologists (CAP) and Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certifications for the technology, which demonstrate a commitment to high-quality patient care. Once the certifications are obtained, they plan to conduct observational clinical studies and then prospective clinical studies.

“We believe our proprietary invivoid 3D cell culture technology, by enabling the rapid establishment of organoid models directly from patient biopsies, has strong potential to help identify more effective treatment options and reduce the likelihood of unnecessary therapies,” Asada added in the release. “Through collaboration on CAP/CLIA certification and clinical validation, we aim to bring this innovation closer to real-world patient care and contribute meaningfully to the advancement of cancer medicine."

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Houston scientists create platform for long-lasting, precise drug delivery

drug breakthrough

A team of Rice University scientists has developed a new drug delivery platform that researchers say can slow the rate of drug release, which has major implications for drug efficacy and potentially cancer immunotherapy.

The research was published in Nature Nanotechnology, and supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and the Welch Foundation.

In the study, the team demonstrated how a peptide hydrogel functions as a three-dimensional network that controls the rate of release across a range of medication types, including small-molecule drugs and biologics such as insulin and antibodies. The system, called self-assembling boronate ester release (SABER), uses reversible chemical bonds between the peptide and the drug molecule to extend the duration of drug release. Instead of passing quickly through the net, the drug gets temporarily “stuck” each time it binds to the peptide, which slows its passage out of the hydrogel, according to Rice.

The researchers formulated a tuberculosis-treating drug into a hydrogel. They used it to treat infected mice with a single injection of the drug-laden hydrogel. In the test, the hydrogel outperformed almost daily oral administration of the medication over two weeks. Insulin packaged in SABER hydrogels successfully controlled blood sugar levels in diabetic mice for six days in another set of experiments.

Brett Pogostin, a Rice doctoral alum who led the development of SABER and served as first author of the study, began working on self-assembling peptides as an undergraduate student at Rice. Jeffrey Hartgerink, a professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Rice, and Kevin McHugh, associate professor of bioengineering and chemistry and a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas scholar, advised Pogostin and served as corresponding authors on the study.

Pogostin’s work aimed to bridge foundational materials research and biomedical applications. SABER was inspired by a drug delivery course taught by McHugh, where Pogostin learned about dynamic covalent bonds used in glucose sensing, where the bonds reversibly form and break apart. That quality inspired Pogostin to adapt the concept for drug delivery.

“Brett really drove this project in a way that is, in my experience, unusual for a graduate student,” Hartgerink said in the news release. “It’s a very versatile approach. You can make both small-molecule drugs and very large biologics sticky with the type of chemistry that Brett developed.”

The team demonstrated the platform in two different use cases with Tuberculosis and Type 1 diabetes, with SABER simplifying dosing and enhancing the efficacy of the drugs. Hartgerink described the current SABER system as “generation one,” and plans to work to make it widely applicable. He is looking into how SABER could be applied to cancer immunotherapy.

“What I’m really passionate about right now is cancer prevention — trying to think about how we can use materials to prime the immune system to prevent cancer from ever happening as opposed to just treating it,” Pogostin added.

10 Houston companies clock in with best corporate cultures, says Forbes

Where to Work

Two of Houston's biggest medical institutions – Houston Methodist and MD Anderson Cancer Center – have just landed top-50 spots on Forbes' new ranking of "America's Best Employers for Company Culture." The report highlighted eight more Houston-area companies for their inspiring company culture.

Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to survey over 218,000 workers at companies with at least 1,000 employees throughout the U.S, and relied on data from the past three years of employee surveys (with an emphasis on the most recent data and recommendations from current employees). Companies don't pay to be included, Forbes additionally noted.

Among the final list of 600 U.S. companies, 30 Texas employers were praised for providing "a unifying company culture that inspires a sense of purpose and loyalty among employees."

Houston Methodist climbed into the No. 15 spot nationally and outranked all other Texas companies on the list, while MD Anderson ranked 47th nationwide. Both institutions have dominated U.S. News' annual rankings of the best Texas hospitals for over a decade, proving exactly how having a great company culture can also improve the service provided to patients.

MD Anderson Cancer Center MD Anderson Cancer Center has been the No. 1 best cancer hospital in the U.S. for over a decade. Photo courtesy of KVUE

According to the report's research, employers with a successful company culture don't rely on "surface-level perks" such as free lunches, wellness apps, and flex days to inspire employee engagement. Instead, employers that focused on conflict resolution and coaching their managers saw a reduction in employee burnout and an increase in "perceptions of fairness and leadership care."

"In fact, the researchers noted that when 'senior leaders changed how they led — how they ran meetings, gave feedback, made decisions and responded to challenge — trust scores rose by an average of 26 percent,'" the report said.

The eight other Houston-area companies that earned national acclaim for their company culture are:

  • No. 220 – Stewart Info Services
  • No. 325 – BP
  • No. 332 – Baylor College of Medicine
  • No. 492 – Chevron Phillips Chemical, The Woodlands
  • No. 525 – Insperity
  • No. 558 – NRG Energy
  • No. 586 – Waste Management
  • No. 593 – LyondellBassell

Other Texas employers with great company culture:

Elsewhere in Texas, 15 North Texas companies and five Central Texas companies were included on Forbes' list of employers with the best company culture.

The three Austin-area companies that earned spots on the list include Austin Community College District (No. 56), Round Rock-based Dell Technologies (No. 207), and Keller Williams Realty (No. 352).

The two San Antonio-based companies that made the cut are beloved Texas grocery chain H-E-B (No. 445), and municipal electric utility company CPS Energy (No. 551).

The 15 Dallas-Fort Worth-based companies that made the list include:

  • No. 58 – The Container Store, Coppell
  • No. 73 – Lewisville Independent School District, Lewisville
  • No. 117 – Southwest Airlines, Dallas
  • No. 123 –Topgolf, Dallas
  • No. 170 – McKesson, Irving
  • No. 190 – Kimberly-Clark, Irving
  • No. 245 – Jacobs Solutions,Dallas
  • No. 312 – Brinker International, Coppell
  • No. 350 – Texas Health Resources, Arlington
  • No. 482 – Toyota North America, Plano
  • No. 562 – Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Dallas
  • No. 567 – AT&T, Dallas
  • No. 569 – Energy Transfer, Dallas
  • No. 591 – American Airlines Group, Fort Worth
  • No. 597 – Aimbridge Hospitality, Plano
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.