Last June, 2020 the ECSEL Joint Undertaking Moore4Medical kicked off with the overarching objective to accelerate innovation in electronic medical devices.

Led by Philips and masterminded by prof. Ronald Dekker (Philips Research, and ECTM group TU Delft), Moore4Medical (https://moore4medical.eu/) will run for three years and will address emerging medical applications and technologies that offer significant new opportunities for the Electronic Systems & Components (ECS) industry. These include: bioelectronic medicines, organs-on-chip, drug adherence monitoring, smart ultrasound, radiation-free interventions and continuous monitoring. The new technologies will help fighting the increasing cost of healthcare by reducing the need for hospitalisation, helping to develop personalized therapies, and realising intelligent point-of-care diagnostic tools.

Moore4Medical brings together 66 selected companies, universities and institutes from 12 European countries who will develop open technology platforms for those emerging fields to help them bridge “the Valley of Death” in shorter time and at lower cost. An essential concept at the core of Moore4Medical, open technology platforms used by multiple users for multiple applications with the prospect of medium-to-high volume markets represent an attractive proposition for the European ECS industry. The combination of typical MedTech and Pharma applications with an ECS style platform approach is at the heart of the vision and mission of the Health.E lighthouse (https://www.health-lighthouse.eu/). Open technology platforms will enhance the competitiveness for the emerging medical domains. With value and IP moving from the technology level towards applications and solutions, defragmentation and open technology platforms will be key in acquiring and maintaining a premier position for Europe at the forefront of affordable healthcare.

Within Moore4Medical, the second workpackage is dedicated to the development of open technology platforms for organs-on-chip. Led by Dr. Massimo “Max” Mastrangeli (ECTM, TU Delft), the organs-on-chip workpackage involves 25 partners (see also full list at the bottom) and aims at the development of three advanced platforms:

1) an autonomous smart multi-well plate, which will have the familiar shape of a standard titer plate, and will contain micropumps and microfluidic infrastructures to provide perfusion and electronics to drive the micropumps, integrated readout sensors and wireless data transfer;
2) a high-definition electrophysiology multi-well plate to bridge the gap between advanced high electrode count integrated circuits and the world of biology and pharma by means of advanced microfluidic fan-out technologies integrated into the well plate;
3) a non-disposable smart multi-well lid, useable in combination with standard plates as well as the smart multi-well plates, which will contain micropumps and sensors that monitor in situ and in a parallel fashion monitor the medium of cell cultures in incubators.

The proposed platforms will be validated in a realistic setting with relevant cell cultures. The universal and fit-for-purpose nature of the smart multi-well plate will be demonstrated with three different organ-on-chip devices from three different manufacturers. In an additional innovation track, novel sensors and organ-on-chip devices will be developed to ensure continuous innovation by bringing advanced sensing and complex organ and disease models to future smart multi-well plates. Furthermore, the DEPArrayTM technology by Menarini Silicon Biosystems for the isolation of 100% pure single live cells from heterogeneous samples will be improved by a dedicated sensing platform for the detection and classification of rare cells, such as, but not limited to, circulating tumor cells.

Topping this off, Moore4Medical’s introduction of open technology platforms in organs-on-chip, as well as the specific attention dedicated to manufacturing and biotechnological aspects related to standardization, automation and ease of use of organs-on-chip, directly implement explicit and important recommendations for a fast and efficient progress of the field. These important recommendations were outlined by the prior ORCHID H2020 CSA project (https://h2020-orchid.eu/) in documents and workshops that laid the foundation of the European roadmap for organs-on-chip development and of the European Organs-on-Chip Society (https://www.euroocs.eu/).

Partners in the Moore4Medical’s WP2 (Organs-on-Chip):
Delft University of Technology (TU Delft, the Netherlands – leader)
Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, the Netherlands)
Philips Electronics Netherlands (PEN, the Netherlands)
TNO/Holst Centre (TNO, the Netherlands)
BI/OND (the Netherlands)
Besi Netherlands (BESI-NL, the Netherlands)
Micronit Netherlands (MIC-NL, the Netherlands)
Imec Belgium (Belgium)
Multi Channel Systems (MCS, Germany)
Fraunhofer EMFT (FEMFT, Germany)
Microfluidic ChipShop (MFCS, Germany)
Menarini Silicon Biosystems (MSB, Italy)
BEonChip (BEOC, Spain)
Institute for Health Research (IISA, Spain)
University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR, Spain)
Institute of Telecommunication (ITAV, Portugal)
Institute of Engineering and Computer Engineering (INESC-MN, Portugal)
Besi Austria (BESI-AT, Austria)
EV Group (EVG, Austria)
Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM, Switzerland)
InSphero (Switzerland)
National Institute for R&D in Microtechnologies (IMT, Romania)
MicroLIQUID (Spain)
Center for Energy Research (CER, Hungary)
Aedus (AED, Hungary)