Description du projet
Validation et application commerciale d’une plateforme d’organe sur puce
La technologie de l’organe sur puce définit un système physiologique biomimétique d’organe construit sur une puce microfluidique. La combinaison de biologie cellulaire, d’ingénierie, de technologie des biomatériaux et du microenvironnement de la puce simule les interfaces des tissus et les stimulations mécaniques des organes. Cette technologie peut prédire les réponses aux médicaments et les effets environnementaux mais accuse encore du retard en raison d’un manque de normalisation dans la fabrication des puces, d’un manque d’automatisation, qui limite les capacités de débit, et d’un manque de soutien pour l’intégration de capteurs. Le projet de démonstration de la preuve de concept open-TOP, financé par l’UE, entend commercialiser l’application de la plateforme d’organe sur puce précédemment développée à l’Université de Twente (Pays-Bas) et conçue pour surmonter les obstacles actuels.
Objectif
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.
Champ scientifique
- 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)
Régime de financement
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantInstitution d’accueil
7522 NB Enschede
Pays-Bas