Because our organs are one billion times softer than plastic.

​

In vitro cell-based assays are recognized as important contributors to persistent failures to translate promising drug candidates into clinical success, due, in part, to their limited predictability and reproducibility of the in vivo cell models.

​

In biological conditions, cells organize in tissues with distinct physical properties where they evolve on soft and textured matrices  . Matrix rigidities impact almost all aspect of cell behavior  . including transcriptional regulation  , protein synthesis  . endocytosis   and even glycolysis necessary for fast metabolism  . They play a major role in carcinogenesis and metastasis formation  , in stem cells differentiation   and in drug effectiveness  . Therefore, cell culture devices should not only allow cell survival and growth but must offer an environment as close as possible to the natural microenvironment of targeted tissues to be representative of the in vivo conditions. Up to date, cell-based assays are still performed in plastic dishes, whose rigidity is up to one billion times stiffer than the in vivo cell environment: The failures of standard culture dishes to maintain the phenotype of many primary cells, or by appearing as wrong predictors support the evidence than these standard tools have now reached their limits. ​Now let’s reinvent cell culture by using soft, mechano-mimetic culture plates!