Customizable Multi-Organ Biochip

There is an urgent need in the pharmaceutical industry to effectively and efficiently screen potential drug compounds during early stages of investigation to assess both effectiveness and toxicity. With patient-specific human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, UC Berkeley researchers have developed in vitro disease-specific model tissues and organs to be used for high content drug screening and patient-specific medicine. These model tissues have been generated by either differentiating pluripotent stem cells inside a cell culture system or by directly introducing pre-differentiated organ-specific cells into a cell culture system. By mimicking the dimensions and cellular arrangement of minimal functional units of human organs, cell culture units consisting of model tissue incorporated into microfluidic systems have been developed for various organ types and are connected to form a multi-organ system fed by a common medium. Side effects and metabolite toxicity can then be detected and studied for drug-screening and further pharmaceutical applications. Terri Sale terri.sale@berkeley.edu 510-643-4219