Biomaterials Innovation Research Center, Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02139;
Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017 Mar 21;114(12):E2293-E2302. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1612906114. Epub 2017 Mar 6.
Organ-on-a-chip systems are miniaturized microfluidic 3D human tissue and organ models designed to recapitulate the important biological and physiological parameters of their in vivo counterparts. They have recently emerged as a viable platform for personalized medicine and drug screening. These in vitro models, featuring biomimetic compositions, architectures, and functions, are expected to replace the conventional planar, static cell cultures and bridge the gap between the currently used preclinical animal models and the human body. Multiple organoid models may be further connected together through the microfluidics in a similar manner in which they are arranged in vivo, providing the capability to analyze multiorgan interactions. Although a wide variety of human organ-on-a-chip models have been created, there are limited efforts on the integration of multisensor systems. However, in situ continual measuring is critical in precise assessment of the microenvironment parameters and the dynamic responses of the organs to pharmaceutical compounds over extended periods of time. In addition, automated and noninvasive capability is strongly desired for long-term monitoring. Here, we report a fully integrated modular physical, biochemical, and optical sensing platform through a fluidics-routing breadboard, which operates organ-on-a-chip units in a continual, dynamic, and automated manner. We believe that this platform technology has paved a potential avenue to promote the performance of current organ-on-a-chip models in drug screening by integrating a multitude of real-time sensors to achieve automated in situ monitoring of biophysical and biochemical parameters.
器官芯片系统是小型化的微流控 3D 人体组织和器官模型,旨在重现其体内对应物的重要生物学和生理学参数。它们最近已成为个性化医学和药物筛选的可行平台。这些具有仿生组成、结构和功能的体外模型有望取代传统的平面、静态细胞培养,并弥合当前使用的临床前动物模型与人体之间的差距。通过微流控技术,多个类器官模型可以以类似于在体内排列的方式连接在一起,从而能够分析多器官相互作用。尽管已经创建了多种人体器官芯片模型,但在多传感器系统的集成方面的努力有限。然而,在原位进行连续测量对于精确评估微环境参数以及器官对药物化合物的动态反应至关重要。此外,对于长期监测,自动化和非侵入性能力是强烈需要的。在这里,我们通过一个流体路由原型板报告了一个完全集成的模块化物理、生化和光学传感平台,该平台以连续、动态和自动化的方式操作器官芯片单元。我们相信,这项平台技术通过集成大量实时传感器来实现生物物理和生化参数的自动原位监测,为当前器官芯片模型在药物筛选中的性能提升铺平了道路。