Design and Fabrication of Organ-on-Chips: Promises and Challenges

Abstract

The advent of the miniaturization approach has influenced the research trends in almost all disciplines. Bioengineering is one of the fields benefiting from the new possibilities of microfabrication techniques, especially in cell and tissue culture, disease modeling, and drug discovery. The limitations of existing 2D cell culture techniques, the high time and cost requirements, and the considerable failure rates have led to the idea of 3D cell culture environments capable of providing physiologically relevant tissue functions in vitro. Organ-on-chips are microfluidic devices used in this context as a potential alternative to in vivo animal testing to reduce the cost and time required for drug evaluation. This emerging technology contributes significantly to the development of various research areas, including, but not limited to, tissue engineering and drug discovery. However, it also brings many challenges. Further development of the technology requires interdisciplinary studies as some problems are associated with the materials and their manufacturing techniques. Therefore, in this paper, organ-on-chip technologies are presented, focusing on the design and fabrication requirements. Then, state-of-the-art materials and microfabrication techniques are described in detail to show their advantages and also their limitations. A comparison and identification of gaps for current use and further studies are therefore the subject of the final discussion.

Organ-On-A-Chip: A Survey of Technical Results and Problems

“…New biomaterials and techniques which may allow some of the harder and more complex physiological functions to be modeled with ease. For the fabrication of the OoC 3D printing, soft lithography, hot embossing and injection molding are all commonly used and each has some advantage over the other ( Tajeddin and Mustafaoglu, 2021 ). Recently the concept of bioprinting has been used by many researchers which could lead to more cost-efficient fabrication of the OoC.…”

Mechanobiological approaches to synthetic morphogenesis: learning by building

“…in [9]) and organ-on-chip systems (rev. in [10][11][12][13]) that generally aim at complexity and application. Rather, we write about elementary systems and processes, with an emphasis on how mechanics enables shape control and tissue function in epithelia.…”

Microfluidic Organ-on-a-Chip Devices for Liver Disease Modeling In Vitro

“…(2) A packed-bed design in which hepatocytes aggregates are placed within the 3D chamber [ 50 ] and (3) hollow-fiber design in which cells aggregate around fibers delivery oxygen and nutrients [ 51 ]. There are several reviews specifically focused on fabrication and design perspectives of organ-on-a-chip devices in the literature [ 15 , 52 ].…”