Microfluidic Cell Chips for High-Throughput Drug Screening

Abstract

The current state of screening methods for drug discovery is still riddled with several inefficiencies. Although some widely used high-throughput screening platforms may enhance the drug screening process, their cost and oversimplification of cell-drug interactions pose a translational difficulty. Microfluidic cell-chips resolve many issues found in conventional HTS technology, providing benefits such as reduced sample quantity and integration of 3D cell culture physically more representative of the physiological/pathological microenvironment. In this review, we introduce the advantages of microfluidic devices in drug screening, and outline the critical factors which influence device design, highlighting recent innovations and advances in the field including a summary of commercialization efforts on microfluidic cell chips. Future perspectives of microfluidic cell devices are also provided based on considerations of present technological limitations and translational barriers.

Advanced Biomaterials and Processing Methods for Liver Regeneration: State‐of‐the‐Art and Future Trends

“…Microfluidic platforms for cell culture are rapidly gaining importance in biological research and drug development applications, as they offer a useful technology that can advance biomaterials research and development . Indeed, stem cell differentiation studies and drug metabolism or toxicity studies are being performed using these platforms. Microfluidic channels are particularly interesting since they can be simply multiplexed with integrated fluid handling procedures for efficient and high throughput cellular analysis, in situ monitoring of cellular events and can mimic a physiological cellular microenvironment with controlled shear stresses and distribution of biochemical molecules at cellular level …”

“…The generation of suitable drug and gene carriers as well as the emergence of different microfluidic devices allowing the investigation of the effects of drugs under conditions reproducing the biological system has been widely described. [183,192] The most common liveronachip models for drug screening are for testing acute drug toxicity. [193] Recently, Yu et al [194] developed a perfusionincubatorliverchip (PIC) for longterm 3D hepatocyte culture, which maintained the cell viability over 3 weeks and functions over 2 weeks, and its application on chronic hepatotoxicity testing.…”

Ex Vivo Tumor‐on‐a‐Chip Platforms to Study Intercellular Interactions within the Tumor Microenvironment

“…Limited primary cells and patient biopsy samples compound these challenges. Microfluidic technology helps to overcome these deficiencies because of the low volume requirement and ability to replicate complex cell–microenvironment interactions which are not possible in conventional high throughput screening (HTS) platforms . High throughput screening tumor‐on chip platforms could serve as an ex vivo model to study combination treatment effects on various tumors …”

Inventions and Innovations in Preclinical Platforms for Cancer Research

“…For instance, the static microenvironment existing in a well in a microtiter plate causes fast depletion of oxygen and nutrients while increasing waste concentration in the well. This can influence the spheroid formation and the future results of the drug tests that need be performed on the tumor [9]. The similarities between in vivo tumor microenvironment and the tumor spheroids extend further.…”