Microfluidic white paper - A review of Organ on Chip Technology

What are Organs-on-Chips (OoC)? How are they built? What are the single- and multi-OoC models currently available? What are the most common applications? In this expert white paper, we provide a comprehensive review of Organ on Chip technology.

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Introducing Organs on Chips

An Organ on a Chip is a microfluidic cell culture device created with microchip manufacturing methods that contains continuously perfused chambers inhabited by living cells arranged to simulate tissue- and organ-level physiology. Organ on Chip models in microfluidically supported biochips offer the possibility to more precisely regulate the environmental conditions critical to the growth of individual cell types. Miniaturized biochips allow for control of nutrition supply and removal of cellular waste products or secondary metabolites accumulating within the culture medium. Furthermore, oxygenation levels, hydrostatic pressure or shear stress can be adjusted to control such aspects as maintenance of cell layers’ barrier integrity and control of cell migration in vitro.

By reproducing the multicellular architectures, tissue-tissue interfaces, physicochemical microenvironments, and vascular perfusion of the body, these devices produce levels of tissue and organ functionality not possible with conventional 2D or 3D culture systems. They also enable real-time high-resolution imaging and in vitro analysis of the biochemical, genetic, and metabolic activities of living cells in a functional context of tissues and organs. In the context of drug discovery and development, OoC devices should be especially valuable for the study of molecular mechanisms of action, prioritization of lead candidates, toxicity testing, and biomarker identification.

This technology has great potential to advance the study of tissue development, organ physiology and disease etiology. Therefore, our goal in this review of Organ on Chip technology is to help you learn more about the details of this promising technology, from its theoretical basis and the different technology models in use, the many advantages and alternatives associated with its use, and the state of the art and recent advances, to its various applications in academia and the pharmaceutical industry.

“We have a collaboration with Fluigent in an ANR with UTC where we want to parallelize organ-on-a-chip systems in order to test different drugs or different concentrations of drugs.”

Nathalie Maubon | CEO HCS Pharma