Organ on Chips: A New Paradigm for Alternative Animal Model in Drug Development

Abstract

Organs-on-chips (OoC) are microfluidic devices that incorporate electronic gadgets or tissues growing in them. Chips are developed to regulate biological microbial environments and specific tissues to optimize the human body. OoCs have received interest as a next-generation experimental platform for studying human pathophysiology and the effects of treatments on the body by combining developments in tissue engineering and microfabrication. Several successful devices based on various organs have been constructed, including lungs on a chip, liver on a chip, kidneys on a chip, hearts on a chip, intestines on a chip, and skin on a chip. The Food and Drug Administration has also shown trust in this technology and has formed agreements with industry and other entities that employ it. The history, concepts, method of preparation of organ on chips, examples of organ on a chip, and applications of the organ on a chip model in various scientific domains such as disease model development, drug screening, pharmacology, customized medicine, and dentistry are discussed in this review. Particularly given the challenges posed by the current spread of the COVID-19 virus, integrating multiple chip modules into a single integrated chip should be a priority for diagnosis and treatment. The market demand for organic product development is expected to increase in the future.