Modular human body-on-a-chip platform

This technology is a customizable platform for growing micro-organ cultures to study multimodal physiological responses and potentially facilitate more efficient, cost-effective drug development.

Unmet Need: Robust, physiologically relevant models for drug screening and development

While animal and cellular models are the gold standard for development and screening of new drugs, they are time consuming, costly, and have low efficacy. The recent development of “organ-on-a-chip” microphysiological systems provides an appealing solution for more effective preclinical testing. These models consist of one or more micro-organ cultures and have the potential to model human physiological responses more accurately than animal or cellular models. However, currently available platforms for growing and sustaining organoids are limited by a number of factors, including the use of common media to culture different organoids, cell sourcing, and the use of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is an absorptive material.

The Technology: Modular platform for growing and sustaining organs-on-a-chip

This technology describes a method of independently culturing multiple organ systems and connecting mature tissue cultures in a modular microphysiological system. Multiple tissue types can be derived from a single human induced pluripotent stem cell line and tissues are separated into individual compartments with endothelial barriers, eliminating the need for common culture media. Perfusion of blood substitute through the entire system mimics the human circulatory system, allowing for the administration of drugs or circulating immune cells in a biomimetic manner. Moreover, the platform is fabricated from a biocompatible, non-absorptive material and does not contain PDMS. Therefore, this technology enables customizable modeling of human physiological systems, facilitating more efficient and cost-effective evaluations of how such systems respond to various stressors and therapeutic interventions.

This technology has been validated with heart, liver, vasculature, skin, and bone organ models derived from the same stem cell line.

Applications:

• Drug discovery and screening
• Physiological model for screening environmental and cosmetic agents
• Multi-organ system model for studying various disease mechanisms (i.e. cancer, neurodegeneration)
• Patient- or disease- specific models for precision medicine applications

Advantages:

• Sustains organoids for longer periods of time
• More human-relevant model
• Offers programmable fluid flow to organoids and across connected organoids
• Replicates individual biological systems
• Enables circulation within or between biological systems
• Allows user-customization of organoid systems and circulatory interconnection
• Permits multiple methods for introducing drugs to organoids, for comparing targeted versus systemic (e.g. intravenous) administration
• Avoids PDMS
• Designed to scale for mass manufacturing
• Comprised of biocompatible material
• Cost-effective

Lead Inventor:

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Status

Related Publications:

• Zhao Y, Wang EY, Davenport LH, Lian Y, Yeager K, Vunjak-Novakovic G, Radisic M, Zhang B. “A multimaterial microhysiological platform enabled by rapid casting of elastic microwires” Adv Healthc Mater. 2019 Mar 7; 8(5): e1801187

Tech Ventures Reference:

• IR CU18367

• Licensing Contact: Beth Kauderer