November 24, 2020 Publication

‘Mini Organs-on-Chips: Towards new research models for studying disease and finding treatments’.

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The Dutch Foundation ‘Biosciences and Society’ has launched the booklet entitled ‘Mini Organs-on-Chips: Towards new research models for studying disease and finding treatments’.

This publication in the series of so-called ‘Cahiers’ explains to a large audience, in an easy-to-understand language, what these promising Organs-on-Chips are, and what they can do and cannot (yet) do for health, and wellbeing of society and economy.
A state-of-the-art overview is given of what can be expected from this technology, now and in the future. Examples illustrating the potential to improve and accelerate drug development, to enable personalized treatment and to reduce the number of animal experiments are included.

The booklet can be downloaded (free download) in pdf or ordered as hard-copy (€7,50).
The booklet is an initiative of the Institute for human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT) and contains contributions from many of the top research groups in the Organ-on-Chip field in the Netherlands.

Abstract
Despite decades of research, there are still no drugs for many diseases. And the drugs that are available may only be effective in some patients or cause unwanted side-effects. Organ-on-Chip technology with human cells is a promising approach to address these problems. The models contain living human cells from specific organs that simulate the function, dynamics and structure of human organs in sickness and in health. Organ-on-Chip models could not only improve but also accelerate the drug development process and reduce its costs. In addition, this technology contributes to reducing the use of laboratory animals.

About the authors and editors
The booklet Mini Organs-on-Chips was composed by Janny van den Eijnden-van Raaij (managing director hDMT & secretary/treasurer EUROoCS), Berend van Meer (researcher LUMC and business developer Organ-on-Chip Center Twente, UTwente), Christine Mummery (Professor of Developmental Biology, Dept. of Anatomy & Embryology, LUMC & Chair EUROoCS) and Astrid van de Graaf (editor-in-chief and freelance science journalist).

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