What is an organ-on-a-chip model?

An organ-on-a-chip is a micro-scale system used for mimicking the human body environment. The goal for organ-on-a-chip is to develop human tissue models for disease modeling and drug testing. They use microfluidics, along with cells, to imitate the physiological and mechanical conditions experienced in the body.

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Herein, how does organ-on-a-chip work?

ORGAN-CHIPS

The chips are lined with living human cells and their tiny fluidic channels reproduce blood and/or air flow just as in the human body. Their flexibility allows the chips to recreate breathing motions, or undergo muscle contractions.

People also ask, how expensive is organ-on-a-chip? We assessed the expected impact of organ-on-a-chip in comparison to the current costs of R&D per new drug. Cost estimates were derived from literature, because actual cost data are not publicly available. Cost estimates per new drug vary widely and range from US$330^† [24], US$660^† [2], US$2060 [8] to US$2760^† [1].

Correspondingly, what are the benefits of organ-on-a-chip over in vitro cell culture and animal test?

The main advantage of organ-on-a-chip technology is the facility to build a specific human model that has functional responses on the level of organs or tissues, thereby avoiding the use of animal models, as well as greatly improving new drug discovery processes for personal healthcare.

What is a microfluidic chip?

A microfluidic chip is a set of micro-channels etched or molded into a material (glass, silicon or polymer such as PDMS, for PolyDimethylSiloxane). The micro-channels forming the microfluidic chip are connected together in order to achieve the desired features (mix, pump, sort, or control the biochemical environment).

What is gut on a chip?

Gut-on-chip allows engineering of an artificial gut containing various human cell types (intestinal epithelial, endothelial, and immune) with a controlled biochemical microenvironment.

What is heart on a chip?

A heart-on-chip is a microfluidic chip reproducing the mechanisms of a heart, in order to test medicine quickly and observe the reaction of heart cells. Great care is given to mimic the mechanics of a heart in an artificial structure, lined with live heart cells.

What is the smallest organ?

the Pineal gland

Which of the organ on chip model do you think is most needed or vital in our local researches?

Liver on chip. Developing a liver-on-chip is essential for new medicine research. Hepatotoxicity is the main reason why potential treatments fail past the animal testing phase [15][16]. Using livers-on-chips could save a significant amount of money.