3D conducting polymer devices for hosting and monitoring human gut models with integrated fluidics

芯片上器官(OOC)技术有可能给药物测试和毒理学行业带来革命性的变化，不仅可以对临床前测试的早期阶段进行流水线处理，减少昂贵的(有时甚至是无关紧要的)动物实验，还可以为个性化药物带来真正的希望。尽管有这样的前景，但目前的OOC模型未能完全捕捉到人类生理的复杂性，并且缺乏将监控技术集成到平台中。Ibibe ERC Consoldator项目的最新进展表明，3D多孔电极可以用来容纳和监测代表人类肠道的组织。这些设备能够容纳人类肠道的多细胞模型，包括微生物区系，现在被证明是人类生物学的组成部分，特别是在肠道中。细胞，包括人类和微生物，都寄宿在模拟体内环境的海绵状电极中。随着细胞的生长，细胞受到电极的动态监测，电极的电学性质因细胞附着和组织分化而改变。我们与CN Bio Innovation建立了合作关系，CN Bio Innovation是一家领先的生物工程公司，专门从事单器官和多器官OOC平台和创新实验室技术，以使我们的设备适应他们最先进的流体平台。由CN Bio公司开发的PhysioMimix Organ-on-Chip(PMX-OOC)是一个灵活且简单易用的OOC系统，它使用一系列不同的多孔消耗板来建立单个和多个器官的体外模型。其结果将是一种复杂的生物电子设备，能够托管和监控复杂的人体肠道模型(在流动条件下)。我们预计，结果将是一个可预测、准确和高通量的平台，对于制药行业来说，这将是一个非常有吸引力的平台，用于经济高效的药物发现、毒性测试、上市后监测和活性生物疗法的开发。

Organ-on-chip (OoC) technologies have the potential to revolutionise the drug testing and toxicology industries, not just by stream-lining early stages of pre-clinical testing and reducing costly (and sometimes irrelevant) experimentation on animals, but also by offering real hope for personalised medicine. Despite this promise, current OoC models fail to fully capture human physiological complexity and suffer from lack of integration of monitoring technology into the platforms. Recent progress in the IMBIBE ERC consolidator project has shown that 3D porous electrodes can be used to host and monitor tissues representative of the human gut. These devices are capable of hosting multi-cellular models of the human gut, including microbiota, now shown to be an integral part of human biology, particularly in the gut. Cells, human and microbe, are hosted within a sponge-like electrode that mimics the in vivo environment. As they grow, cells are dynamically monitored by the electrode, whose electrical properties change due to cell attachment and tissue differentiation. We have established a collaboration with CN Bio Innovations, a leading bioengineering company specialising in single and multi-organ OoC platforms and innovative lab technologies, to adapt our device to their state of the art fluidic platform. The PhysioMimix Organ-on-Chip (PMX-OOC) developed by CN Bio is a flexible and simple to use OoC system which uses a range of different multi-well consumable plates to develop single and multi-organ in vitro models. The result will be a sophisticated bioelectronic device capable of hosting and monitoring a complex human model of the gut (under flow conditions). We anticipate that the result will be a predictive, accurate and high throughput platform which will be very attractive to the pharmaceutical industry for cost-effective and efficient drug discovery, toxicity testing, post market surveillance and development of live biotherapeutics.