From an organ on a chip to a body on a chip

Scaling up organs on a chip to get a functional body on a chip

Recent innovations in microfluidic technologies have produced organ on a chip (OoC) platforms, which integrate advanced 3D tissue engineered constructs with microfluidic networks to minimize the shortcomings of in vitro 2D models. Such cohesive platform enables important physiological cues, such as the vasculature and interstitial fluid flow, which improves the emulation of the in vivo physiological conditions for studying stem cell differentiation, metastasis, and so on. In addition, inter-species differences can be eliminated through the use of human cells. Furthermore, researchers have begun to investigate the interconnection of multiple OoC systems into a single network, in order to emulate inter-organ relationships and ultimately develop human-body-like microphysiological systems. The perspectives opened by this new in vitro tool take place into the fields of personalized medicine, pre-clinical trials, toxicology and drug development.

Fig. 1: Evolution from in vitro models to multi-OOC systems.