Organ-on-chip platforms (microfluidic devices that recapitulate relevant aspects of the architecture and physiology of human tissues) are becoming powerful tools in many pharma and biomedical applications. Organ-on-chips are excellent experimental platforms before (or instead of) experimentation with animal models.
Imagine growing small pieces of functional human tissue in lab-on-chip devices to study physiological processes or to test the effect of drugs and contaminants or to develop personalized therapeutic approaches. This is totally feasible, and we do it now in our lab! For example, in our cancer-on-chip project, we co-culture cancerous and healthy cells in small hydrogel constructs to recapitulate various aspects of the biology of a solid tumor and to enable the cost-effective testing of anti-cancer drugs. Our ultimate goal in this project is to develop personalized anti-tumor therapies (personalized medicine) using these cancer-on-chip devices. Envision taking a real biopsy from a patient and then deriving and culturing many tumoroids in a continuous microfluidic device.
This immediately allows the easy and rapid testing of multiple anti-cancer drugs to select the one that most effectively (and/or selectively) kills tumorous tissue specifically from that patient. Moreover, the use of organ-on-chip devices provides the ability to conduct fundamental studies that are not easily doable otherwise. In our neuron-on-chip projects, for example, we assay different techniques that can direct neuronal growth in microgels.
We culture neurons in micro- and nano-engineered gelatin-methacryloyl (GelMA) hydrogels in specially fabricated neuron-on-chip devices. In these chips, we can study nerve reconnection after an injury. In a third project in this series, we show that the complex interplay between human cells and gut microbiota can be elegantly studied in gut-on-chip systems that recapitulate particular aspects of the architecture and dynamics of the human intestine.