Abstract
Following the advancements in microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technologies, a novel biomedical application for microfluidic based devices has emerged in recent years and microengineered cell culture platforms have been created. These micro-devices, known as organ-on-a-chip (OOC) platforms mimic the in vivo like microenvironment of living organs and offer more physiologically relevant in vitro models of human organs. Consequently, the concept of OOC has gained great attention from researchers in the field worldwide to offer powerful tools for biomedical researches including disease modeling, drug development, etc. This review highlights the background of biochip development. Herein, we focus on applications of LOC devices as a versatile tool for POC applications. We also review current progress in OOC platforms towards body-on-a-chip, and we provide concluding remarks and future perspectives for OOC platforms for POC applications.
Highlights
Soon after the development of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), the potential of these miniaturized platforms for various applications in life science has been revealed
As compared to static cell culture models, microfluidic cell culture platforms are able to emulate the dynamic microenvironment for the cells when macroscopic cell culture models fail to reproduce the microenvironment of the cells as it is in vivo
An integrated liver–heart–vascular microdevice developed by Vunjak-Novakovic et al [140] incorporated liver, cardiac and blood vessel cells in a microfluidic platform which potentially can be used in toxicity tests of cardiovascular drug components
Summary
Soon after the development of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), the potential of these miniaturized platforms for various applications in life science has been revealed. During the past few decades, interest in biological or biomedical MEMS (BioMEMS) has been drastically increased and it has found widespread applications in a various areas of biomedical and life science including diagnostics, therapeutics, drug delivery, biosensors and tissue engineering [1]. These integrated systems are known as “lab-on-a-chip” (LOC) or “micro-total analysis systems” (μTAS). By looking through specifications of LOC and OOC, we discuss future perspectives in the development of OOC platforms toward user friendly devices for drug discovery and POC applications
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