Harnessing Advances in Bone Tissue Engineering for Design of Bone-on-Chip Systems

Area of Science:

• Biomaterials Science
• Bioengineering
• Regenerative Medicine

Background:

• Organ-on-chip (OOC) systems offer advanced models for human physiology and drug testing.
• Development of bone-on-chip (BoC) systems lags behind soft tissue models due to bone's complexity.
• Bone tissue engineering (BTE) advances present opportunities for improved BoC development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify key requirements for advanced bone-on-chip systems.
• To explore current BoC models, including their strengths and weaknesses.
• To highlight how BTE can accelerate the creation of more accurate BoC models.

Main Methods:

• Review of existing literature on organ-on-chip and bone tissue engineering.
• Analysis of challenges in recapitulating bone (patho)physiology on-chip.
• Identification of opportunities presented by BTE advancements for BoC design.

Main Results:

• Bone's structural and functional complexity hinders BoC development.
• BTE innovations in biomaterials and bioengineering tools can enhance BoC models.
• Current BoC models have limitations in fully capturing in vivo bone characteristics.

Conclusions:

• Integrating BTE strategies is crucial for developing sophisticated BoC systems.
• Future BoC designs should leverage biomaterials and bioengineering for greater physiological relevance.
• Further research is needed to overcome challenges and advance the field of bone-on-chip technology.