Testing deferoxamine to improve fracture healing and treat fracture healing disorders

Funding by: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

Funding period: 2021 - 2022

Aim: The aim of this project is the testing and validation of an already approved drug for the supportive treatment of fractures and fracture healing disorders. This will include using already established in vitro models (2D and 3D) by osteogenically differentiating human mesenchymal stromal cells and treating them with deferoxamine (DFO). Data obtained in these experiments will then be compared with results from in vivo experiments to assess whether and how clinical translation of the obtained findings is possible.

3R Relevance: The BfR is participating in this study as one of two laboratories investigating different concentrations of DFO in cell culture with respect to their effect on human mesenchymal stromal cells (precursor cells for bone-forming osteoblasts). Both laboratories will use the same protocols, consumables, cell culture materials and cells. In addition, both laboratories will receive different dilutions of the drug DFO in a blinded fashion. Subsequently, the data collected in this way will be analyzed by another collaborative partner in the study. This is to determine how good the comparability of in vitro studies from different laboratories really is and whether such a study design has advantages or not. Furthermore, the data from the laboratory experiments will be compared to those from animal experiments to determine how well the in vitro experiments can predict data from in vivo experiments. This has direct relevance to the work of the German Center for the Protection of Laboratory Animals (Bf3R), as the study will demonstrate that better study design, as well as the inclusion of reliable in vitro data, can reduce the number of laboratory animals needed (Reduce).