3D organ models—Revolution in pharmacological research?

Abstract

A B S T R A C T 3D organ models have gained increasing attention as novel preclinical test systems and alternatives to animal testing. Over the years, many excellent in vitro tissue models have been developed. In parallel, microfluidic organ-on-a-chip tissue cultures have gained increasing interest for their ability to house several organ models on a single device and interlink these within a human-like environment. In contrast to these advancements, the development of human disease models is still in its infancy. Although major advances have recently been made, efforts still need to be intensified. Human disease models have proven valuable for their ability to closely mimic disease patterns in vitro, permitting the study of pathophysiological features and new treatment options. Although animal studies remain the gold standard for preclinical testing, they have major drawbacks such as high cost and ongoing controversy over their predictive value for several human conditions. Moreover, there is growing political and social pressure to develop alternatives to animal models, clearly promoting the search for valid, cost-efficient and easy-to-handle systems lacking interspecies-related differences.In this review, we discuss the current state of the art regarding 3D organ as well as the opportunities, limitations and future implications of their use.

Progressive 3D Printing Technology and Its Application in Medical Materials

“…(B, C) 3D printed titanium apparatus for cervical spine and pelvic surgery respectively. Reproduced, with permission, from (Xu et al, 2016;Wei et al, 2017;Nie et al, 2019). strength and initial stability, poor bone ingrowth and long-term stability, and low cost-efficiency (Wang et al, 2019).…”

Incoming Flow Turbulence Reduction Increases the Efficiency of Aerosolized Medication Delivery to 3D Oral Mucosal Tissue Models.

“…More direct methods of assessing the medication deposition and absorption rates could be obtained on actual 3D tissue samples. In recent years progress has been made in constructing 3D tissue models and using them for various research and clinical applications [18][19][20][21]. This allowed for departure from the use of animal tissue models, and for obtaining data in realistic physiologic conditions [21][22][23][24][25][26][27].…”

Vascularized Microfluidics and the Blood–Endothelium Interface

“…Furthermore, with the use of transparent substrates they make high resolution, real-time imaging of cell-cell interactions possible with minimal interference. In addition, as these devices are modeled to lack the interspecies differences inherent to animal models, they contain the potential to be both complementary and to lessen the dependence on the latter, ultimately reducing costs and ethical complexity [22]. Previous reviews in this journal have focused on the benefits and limitation of vascularized microdevices [23], the use of organoids in microfluidic models [24], and the applications of microfluidics to the study of vascularized tumors [25].…”