Eric Gottwald PhD

Prof. Dr. Eric Gottwald started focusing on the development of an artificial liver when he was a post-doc at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). His work was crowned with success: together with some of his colleagues, the biologist developed a system for cultivating liver cells. Back then, such a system was truly unique. "It was a purely academic project in which we created just a handful of items," explains the professor. "However, demand in the pharmaceutical industry for a wide range of cultured cells has risen considerably and stimulated the development of manufacturing techniques for large-scale cell cultivation. Although animal experiments are true 3D systems, the use of animals means that the tests are not actually being done on humans for whom the medicines are being developed. Such tests therefore cannot be readily used to predict human response to drugs. In addition, animal tests are very expensive. However, the pharmaceutical industry urgently needs tests that reliably provide information on new active ingredients. A golden mean is the use of cell cultures that have a tissue-like function through their three-dimensional arrangement, but are much less complex than a whole animal."