Hans-Jürgen Stark
After being graduated in biology at the RWTH University Aachen I joined the department „Differentiation and Carcinogenesis“ at the German Cancer Research Center and focused there on the regulation of epidermal morphology and differentiation in healthy and tumorigenic state. In the course of these studies I developed an optimized design for a three-dimensional co-culture system comprising a functional dermal compartment with a vital layer of stratifying keratinocytes. This not only proved to be beneficial for basic research but also turned out to be an excellent tool for testing drug effects in vitro under nearly physiologic conditions.
So, exploiting this culture system we are capable to produce dysplasia equivalents for testing purposes by incorporating tumor cells into those skin models. This versatile 3D-culture model holds a vast potential to generate specifically tailored in vitro-tests for the promising search of more effective tumor therapies.
