Organ-on-a-chip engineering: Toward bridging the gap between lab and industry

Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is a very ambitious emerging technology with a high potential to revolutionize many medical and industrial sectors, particularly in preclinical-to-clinical translation in the pharmaceutical arena. In vivo, the function of the organ(s) is orchestrated by a complex cellular structure and physiochemical factors within the extracellular matrix and secreted by various types of cells. The trend in in vitro modeling is to simplify the complex anatomy of the human organ(s) to the minimal essential cellular structure "micro-anatomy" instead of recapitulating the full cellular milieu that enables studying the absorption, metabolism, as well as the mechanistic investigation of drug compounds in a "systemic manner." However, in order to reflect the human physiology in vitro and hence to be able to bridge the gap between the in vivo and in vitro data, simplification should not compromise the physiological relevance. Engineering principles have long been applied to solve medical challenges, and at this stage of organ-on-a-chip technology development, the work of biomedical engineers, focusing on device engineering, is more important than ever to accelerate the technology transfer from the academic lab bench to specialized product development institutions and to the increasingly demanding market. In this paper, instead of presenting a narrative review of the literature, we systemically present a synthesis of the best available organ-on-a-chip technology from what is found, what has been achieved, and what yet needs to be done. We emphasized mainly on the requirements of a "good in vitro model that meets the industrial need" in terms of the structure (micro-anatomy), functions (micro-physiology), and characteristics of the device that hosts the biological model. Finally, we discuss the biological model-device integration supported by an example and the major challenges that delay the OOC technology transfer to the industry and recommended possible options to realize a functional organ-on-a-chip system.