Microfluidic mechanical bioinfluence on function of “kidney-on-chip”

Description

Kidney disease is a major health issue worldwide, while the risk of kidney failure is still underestimated. Organ-on-chip is an ideal tool to study human disease and has great potential in biomedical applications such as drug screening, regenerative medicine and pre-clinical studies, because it has the capability of reproducing the 3D microenvironment as in the human body, for example by applying well-controlled fluid flow and other cues.

In this project, we focus on the kidney functioning unit – the nephron, and aim to mimic it on function level through developing "kidney-on-chip" - a microfluidics enabled bioreactor in which a physiologically-alike renal tubule-blood capillary interplay model is presented.

The "kidney-on-chip" will be firstly fabricated by optimizing different organ-on-chip fabrication techniques. After the renal cell seeding, the microfluidic mechanical bioinfluence on cell morphology and cell function will be investigated.

Researchers

Researcher: Sha Lou.

Supervisors: Carlijn V.C. Bouten, Jaap den Toonder.

Funding by RegMed-XB Kidney Moonshot.