Accelerating drug discovery via organs-on-chips

Abstract

Considerable advances have been made in the development of micro-physiological systems that seek to faithfully replicate the complexity and functionality of animal and human physiology in research laboratories. Sometimes referred to as “organs-on-chips”, these systems provide key insights into physiological or pathological processes associated with health maintenance and disease control, and serve as powerful platforms for new drug development and toxicity screening. In this Focus article, we review the state-of-the-art designs and examples for developing multiple “organs-on-chips”, and discuss the potential of this emerging technology to enhance our understanding of human physiology, and to transform and accelerate the drug discovery and pre-clinical testing process. This Focus article highlights some of the recent technological advances in this field, along with the challenges that must be addressed for these technologies to fully realize their potential.

3D Anastomosed Microvascular Network Model with Living Capillary Networks and Endothelial Cell-Lined Microfluidic Channels

“…Flow of fluorescent microparticles confirms perfusability of the lumenized microvascular network. In addition, minimal leakage of 70 kDa FITC-dextran confirms physiologic integrity of the interconnections between the artery/vein and the capillary network, which is critically important for drug screening applications [15]. This model can provide a promising avenue for future integration of multiple organs-on-a-chip through the vascular interface between arteries and veins [16,17].…”

Assessing drug safety in human tissues — what are the barriers?

“…There was no trend associated with which organ system these assay platforms were used to investigate. None of the respondents is currently using bioreactor or microfluidic approaches, despite recent advances in these technologies [1][2][3] .…”

Precise manipulation of cell behaviors on surfaces for construction of tissue/organs

“…Although in vitro cell research systems have greatly promoted the development of biology and medicine, they often suffer from a lack of physiological relevance which has been a bottleneck in biological research and drug development [107]. The emergency and progress of micro/nanotechnology has enabled recapitulation and manipulation of physiological and pathological tissue microenvironment, which has led to the development of novel in vitro tissue or organ models termed "organ-on-a-chip" systems [108][109][110][111].…”