Organs-on-Chips
A special issue of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2019) | Viewed by 60092
Special Issue Editor
Interests: organs-on-chip; hybrid microfabrication; sensors; permeable membranes; ultrathin films; bioadhesives; reproductive toxicology; microphysiological systems
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Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The organs-on-a-chip field is only 10 years old, but it developed at lightning speed. Facing the need of the pharma industry and the academic world for more realistic and reliable human models for drug discovery, testing, and screening, tremendous effort and funding have been dedicated to the development of brain, liver, kidney, heart, and gut models as the main targets of therapeutics. Several groups later approached this technology to clarify the pathogenesis and phatophysiology of human diseases affecting other organs and systems (e.g., vasculature, skin, bone, cartilage, and reproductive organs). Interestingly, the organs-on-a-chip community grouped together experts from different disciplines and boosted innovation in nano/microfabrication, tissue engineering, and material science. Effective micro and meso fluidic models are now commercially available and enable long term growth and control of phenotypic characteristics of multiple cell types.
Thanks to their potential to revolutionize drug development, disease modeling, and personalized medicine, organs-on-a-chip have drastically reduced the use of animals in academic and industrial R&D, replaced traditional in vivo validation and preclinical trials in animals, and supported the refinement of in vitro methods and techniques.
By connecting organs, it is now possible to study how the physiology of a single organ is linked to its metabolism, its response to drugs or toxins, its immune system, and the hormal regulation of other organs.
This Special Issue thus aims to depict the current scenario in this field of animal and human organs-on-a-chip models. Reports on the development of anchillary technologies, such as on-chip or downstream sensing, perfusion systems, and engineering approaches to support cell development, are welcome. New strategies and revised approaches for manufacturing organs-on-a-chip will be included, including new techniques to solve the limitations of traditionally used plastics (e.g., molecules adsorption, hydrophobicity, and transparency), using alternative, sustainable, manufacturing processes and materials. Examples of contributions could address:
- Animal and human organs-on-a-chip models
- Validation of organs-on-a-chip models for drug testing and drug screening, toxicity, and toxicology studies
- Novel methods of analysis of the organs’ effluents
- Non perturbative analytical methods
- Sensors integration and techniques for in situ monitoring
- Multiple organs connections and validation
Dr. Virginia Pensabene
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- organs-on-a-chip
- microfluidic
- microphysiological systems
- body-on-a-chip
- drug discovery
- animal testing
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