Organ-on-chip (OoC) systems are small microfluidic platforms that mimic the physiologically perfused microenvironment of cells in their tissue unit. Three-dimensional chambers and micron-scale channels integrated into the chips, as well as special geometric, mechanical and biological properties and components, physiologically simulate complex human biological processes outside the human body. These in vitro test systems can be used to answer a wide range of medical, biological, pharmacological and toxicological questions without having to use laboratory animals. With our international team, we work interdisciplinary at the interface between material and engineering sciences, physics, biology and medicine.
In close cooperation with the 3R-Center Tübingen for in vitro models and animal testing alternatives, we offer the possibility through our research to reduce the use and necessity of animal testing according to the 3R principle (Replace, Reduce, Refine), to increase the transferability of preclinical results to the clinical phases and thus to make the entire development more cost-effective, safer and faster.
Services offered
- Development and characterisation of microphysiological organ-on-chip systems for individual questions
- Assistance in combining microfluidics, biomaterials and 3D tissues
- Development of in vitro disease models
- Substance testing
- Functional testing and validation of external in vitro models
- Establishment of physiological cultivation parameters
- Determination of viability and functionality of tissue units
- Substance testing
- Read-outs of media supernatants from the capillary channels as well as the direct cellular milieu
- Provision of samples extracted from chips
- for protein expression
- RNA expression
Tchniques, methods, equipment
- Chip fabrication labs with various structuring and joining methods such as lithography, laser cutting, hot stamping, 3D printing, thermo-mechanical joining and laser welding
- Application laboratory for chip culture and simultaneous evaluation
- Cell culture labs for stem cell work and genetic engineering
- Functional assays: including cytotoxicity, proliferation, apoptosis
- Immunohistochemistry of organs-on-chip
- Fluorescence microscopy
- Wide-field and confocal microscopy
- automated high-throughput microscopic analyses
- Flow cytometric analyses and sorting
- Isolation of various cell types from patient sample