Ingber Donald E
Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University Boston MA 02115 USA.
Vascular Biology Program, Department of Surgery Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School Boston MA 02115 USA.
Adv Sci (Weinh). 2020 Oct 12;7(22):2002030. doi: 10.1002/advs.202002030. eCollection 2020 Nov.
For the past century, experimental data obtained from animal studies have been required by reviewers of scientific articles and grant applications to validate the physiological relevance of in vitro results. At the same time, pharmaceutical researchers and regulatory agencies recognize that results from preclinical animal models frequently fail to predict drug responses in humans. This reviews recent advances in human organ-on-a-chip (Organ Chip) microfluidic culture technology, both with single Organ Chips and fluidically coupled human "Body-on-Chips" platforms, which demonstrate their ability to recapitulate human physiology and disease states, as well as human patient responses to clinically relevant drug pharmacokinetic exposures, with higher fidelity than other in vitro models or animal studies. These findings raise the question of whether continuing to require results of animal testing for publication or grant funding still makes scientific or ethical sense, and if more physiologically relevant human Organ Chip models might better serve this purpose. This issue is addressed in this article in context of the history of the field, and advantages and disadvantages of Organ Chip approaches versus animal models are discussed that should be considered by the wider research community.
在过去的一个世纪里,科学文章的评审人员和科研基金申请机构要求从动物研究中获取实验数据,以验证体外实验结果的生理相关性。与此同时,制药研究人员和监管机构认识到临床前动物模型的结果常常无法预测人类的药物反应。本文综述了人类器官芯片微流控培养技术的最新进展,包括单个器官芯片以及流体耦合的人类“人体芯片”平台,这些技术展示了它们比其他体外模型或动物研究更逼真地再现人类生理和疾病状态,以及人类患者对临床相关药物药代动力学暴露反应的能力。这些发现引发了一个问题,即继续要求动物试验结果才能发表文章或获得资助是否仍然具有科学或伦理意义,以及更具生理相关性的人类器官芯片模型是否可能更适合这一目的。本文结合该领域的历史来探讨这个问题,并讨论了器官芯片方法与动物模型相比的优缺点,广大研究群体应予以考虑。