Organ-on-a-chip: Better Designs, Better Health

The session

Animal testing is an energy-intensive process that contributes to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. It poses health risks to laboratory workers and threatens biodiversity, with over 8 million animals dying in experiments annually in Europe alone. It is therefore important to develop alternatives to animal models for use in biomedical science, drug development and toxicology.

At the TechMed Centre, we are realising the potential of organs-on-a-chip: small transparent devices with living cells and tissues that mimic the functions of your organs. They can be used to study how a tissue functions in health and disease, and how it responds to drugs, without harming animals or humans. 

But creating organs-on-a-chip that are relevant for patients is not easy. It requires close collaboration between engineers, clinicians and biomedical scientists, who all have different backgrounds, skills and perspectives. How do they communicate and collaborate across multiple disciplines? What are the benefits and limitations of organs-on-a-chip compared to other methods? And how do they ensure that organs-on-a-chip are relevant and reflect the diversity and variability of human patients?  

In this session, you will hear from local engineers and their medical collaborators who are working together to develop organs-on-a-chip that are relevant for patients. They will share their experiences and challenges in co-designing organ-on-a-chip models for different diseases, such as lung disease, arthritis or brain tumours. 

The programme

Speakers

This session will be moderated by Dr. Liliana Moreira Teixeira, University of Twente.

Click on each speaker for their biography, summary and other information.