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Project

Complex personalized organ-on-chip models to study the dynamics of cystic fibrosis pathophysiology

Biomedical research largely depends on simplified in vitro systems
(e.g. immortalized cell lines) or in vivo animal models. Unfortunately,
these systems are not sufficiently predictive of human
pathophysiology, hampering the successful translation of
experimental results to human medicine. 2D/3D patient-derived cell
cultures, including organoids, are gaining momentum as more
reliable disease models compatible with personalized medicine. Yet,
these systems suffer from the lack of a physiological
microenvironment (endothelium, immune cells, extracellular matrix)
which for a disease like cystic fibrosis (CF), plays a key role in
disease initiation and progression, besides its genetic component.
Given the impact of a patient’s genetics on disease severity and
treatment response, there is great value in building complex and
personalized experimental models to fully understand and treat
human disease. With this project, we aim to build a microfluidic
platform allowing us to study the contribution of different human cell
types to CF disease by modulating the different cell components one
at a time. We will specifically focus on building a complex lung and
gut on a chip, two organs affected in CF. This will be done in the
presence of a complete stromal environment in a multi-organ,
personalized organ-on-chip system which holds promise to obtain
clinically relevant answers not only for CF, but any other respiratory intestinal or multisystemic disorder

Date:1 Jan 2022 →  Today
Keywords:Organ-on-chip, Personalized medicine, Cystic Fibrosis, in-vitro 3D cell models, Multi-organ disease models
Disciplines:Organ engineering, Microfluidics/flow chemistry, Tissue engineering, Cell, tissue and organ engineering