CeBiTec Colloquium (unscheduled)

 date 

Wednesday, August 29th 2012, 12:30

 location 

G2-104, CeBiTec Building

 speaker 

Dr. Uwe Marx

CEO TissUse &
Program Head "Multi-Organ-Chips"
Department of Biotechnology
Technische Universität Berlin

title 

“Humans-on–a-chip” – a translational alternative to systemic safety and efficacy testing in animals (and man)!?

abstract Pressures to change from traditional animal models for systemic safety and efficacy testing to translational new technologies arise from the limited prediction of human health effects and animal welfare considerations. This change requires cutting edge new in-vitro models truly emulating complex aspects of the human organism at smallest possible scale combined with system biology approaches for pathway identification. On one hand each individual organ needs an appropriate miniaturized organoid model in such “Human-on-a-chip”-concepts. On the other hand a biological combination of such organoids into systems is mandatory. Immunological and inflammatory reactions need to be incorporated. Various organ-on-a-chip systems have emerged over the last decade. Degree of equivalence of organoids to their human counterparts and fluid dynamics fully emulating human microcirculation remain major challenges in such systems. To overcome that hurdles, a smartphone-sized, self-contained multi-organ-chip-platform has been established. A peristaltic on-chip micro-pump reproducibly operates a microcirculation system interconnecting several tissue culture spaces within a PDMS-embedded micro-fluidic channel system. The layout supports flexible integration of conventional miniaturized tissue culture formats, such as Transwell-inserts, or special organotypic matrices into the tissue culture spaces.  A rapid prototyping technology for flexible adoption of the micro-fluidic chip design to test-specific needs at different human tissue arrangements has been developed. Performance of the technology has been proven in various human 3D-liver and human skin equivalent culture settings of up to 4 weeks. To further improve the technology, the establishment of a human vasculature in the microcirculation channels been optimized. In a next program step the inclusion of organ equivalents for intestine, kidney and bone marrow will extend the multi-organ-chip use to entire ADMET testing. The presentation provides the latest results of our development and highlights ongoing worldwide research activities in the field. Finally it provides an outlook on efforts in the field of micro-systems technologies, systems biology and tissue engineering to overcome remaining bottlenecks.
 host 

Prof. Dr. Alfred Pühler