RWTH Aachen University
The blood-brain-barrier (BBB) is a highly complex, multi-layered structure that serves as the gatekeeper between the central nervous system and the rest of the body. Three-dimensional BBB in vitro mini-models are potential platforms for understanding how the BBB functions, evaluating drug penetration across the barrier and investigating personalized therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. The goal of Gatekeeper is to investigate the feasibility of using elastin-like protein hydrogels with varying degrees of degradability as bioinks for bioprinting in vitro mini-models that recapitulate the anatomy of the BBB.
