Project description
Validation and commercial application of organ-on-chip platform
The organ-on-chip technology defines a physiological organ biomimetic system built on a microfluidic chip. A combination of cell biology, engineering, biomaterial technology and the microenvironment of the chip simulates tissue interfaces and organ mechanical stimulations. This technology can predict drug responses and environmental effects but is staying behind due to a lack of standardisation in chip manufacturing, lack of automation, which limits the throughput capabilities, and lack of support for sensor integration. The EU-funded open-TOP proof-of-concept project aims to commercialise the application of the organ-on-chip platform previously developed at the University of Twente (the Netherlands) and designed to overcome the current hurdles.
Objective
Organ-on-Chips, and more general microphysiological systems, are believed to revolutionize the way we develop drugs or select personalized therapies. Recapitulating human response both from healthy and diseased individuals potentially even enables ‘clinical trials in-a-dish’. While research in this field is thriving and commercial start-ups have been founded, adoption from end users is staying behind due to a number of reasons: i) lack of standardization making chips not compatible with each other, ii) lack of automation which limits the throughput and user-friendliness of the systems and iii) lack of support for sensor integration. The Twente Organ-on-Chip Platform (TOP) is designed to overcome these hurdles and has been developed for internal use during the ERC project VESCEL. During interaction with other researchers and companies within the Organ-on-Chip field they expressed their interest in a more standardized, automated platform that also supports sensor integration. Since it would require a number of steps for them to be able to use the platform in their existing environment we here suggest the ‘open-TOP’ ERC Proof of Concept project where we aim to commercialize the application of the Twente Organ-on-Chip Platform (TOP) and facilitate end users to use TOP in real world contexts. To reach this objective we need to develop a robust interconnect, validate and identify difficulties in making a third party chip TOP-compatible, validate the use of TOP for a biological experiment and finally determine the commercialization strategy for TOP. We believe TOP can help more end users to adopt Organ-on-Chip as a technology in their lab because in contrast to current setups, the open technology of TOP supports chips from third parties are inter compatible, multiplexable and controlled automatically. If ‘open-TOP’ is granted, TOP will be the standardized Organ-on-Chip infrastructure allowing users to stop worrying about control systems and only focus on chips and biology.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringcontrol systems
- social sciencessociologyindustrial relationsautomation
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
- engineering and technologyother engineering and technologiesmicrotechnologyorgan on a chip
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
7522 NB Enschede
Netherlands