Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1050827
NOVEMBER 2018 I PCB007 MAGAZINE 33 According to Dr. Róisín Owens from Cambridge's Depart- ment of Chemical Engineering and Bio- technology and the study's senior au- thor, while 2D cell models—biological studies traditionally in Petri dishes—have served the scientific community well, research needs to move to 3D cell models to develop the next generation of therapies. "Three-dimensional cell cultures can help us identify new treatments and know which ones to avoid if we can accurately monitor them," said Dr. Charalampos Pitsalidis, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical En - gineering & Biotechnology and the study's first author. Now, 3D cell and tissue cultures are an emerging field of biomedical research, en- abling scientists to study the physiology of human organs and tissues in ways that have not been possible before. However, while these 3D cultures can be generated, a technology that accurately assesses their functionality in real time has not been well- developed. "The majority of the cells in our body com- municate with each other by electrical signals, so in order to monitor cell cultures in the lab, we need to attach electrodes to them," said Dr. Owens, "However, electrodes are pretty clunky and difficult to attach to cell cultures, so we decided to turn the whole thing on its head and put the cells inside the electrode." The device that Dr. Owens and her colleagues developed is based on a scaffold of a conduct- ing polymer sponge configured into an electro- chemical transistor. The cells are grown with- in the scaffold, and the entire device is then placed inside a plastic tube through which the necessary nutrients for the cells can flow. The use of the soft sponge electrode instead of a traditional rigid-metal electrode provides a more natural environment for cells and is key to the success of organ-on-a-chip technology in predicting the response of an organ to dif- ferent stimuli. Other organ-on-a-chip devices need to be completely taken apart to monitor the func- tion of the cells, but since the Cambridge-led design allows for continuous real-time moni- toring, it is possible to carry out longer-term experiments on the effects of various diseases and potential treatments. "With this system, we can monitor the growth of the tissue and its health in response to external drugs or toxins," said Dr. Pitsalid- is, "Apart from toxicology testing, we can also induce a particular disease in the tissue, and study the key mechanisms involved in that disease or discover the right treatments." The researchers plan to use their device to develop a gut-on-a- chip and attach it to a brain-on-a-chip to study the relationship between the gut micro- biome and brain func- tion as part of the IM- BIBE project funded by the European Research Council. The researchers have filed a patent for the device in France. PCB007 3D organ-on-a-chip. Dr. Charalampos Pitsalidis