Authors: Hadrien Mauriac, under the supervision of Guilhem Velvé Casquillas*
*corresponding authour: Elvesys SAS, 172 Rue de Charonne 75011 Paris
Microfluidics start-up working on organ-on-chip: Emulate is a US start-up, well-known to have come up with the first organs-on-chips. Their main goal is to develop microfluidic chips to understand how diseases, drugs, chemicals and food affect our health. The start-up was created in the labs of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering in Harvard. After developing many organs-on-chip (such as lungs-on-chip, gut-on-chip and even blood-brain-barrier-on-chip), Emulate is now researching personalized medicine.
Like Emulate, InSphero was created at a university: the Zurich university in Switzerland. It now became the n°1 start-up in Switzerland. However, InSphero did not rise to fame for its organs-on-chip expertise, but for its 3D cell culture. Their goal is to develop safer and more efficient drugs. Among their clients are the ten most important pharmaceutical companies in the world. However, they will be using organs-on-chips as well in the coming years, to take on the challenge of personalized medicine.
Elvesys is a French microfluidics start-up. As soon as 2011, Elvesys commercialized microfluidic instruments to become one of the main companies in the field. Today, it aims to stimulate research projects around organs-on-chips and push back the limits of life.
Mimetas – the organ-on-chip company is a Dutch company known for developing OrganoPlates, microfluidic cell culture plates that allow culture and screening of a large assay of organ models and physiologically relevant tissues. Thanks to those plates, Mimetas has already developed many organs-on-chips (kidney, gut, tumors and many others…) and are researching the technology.
Mesobiotech SAS is a company created by Pr. Yong Chen of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris. It specializes in micro-structural patch culture for human stem cells culture and differentiation. The company focuses some of its resources on the application of its technology to manufacture organs-on-chip for personalized medicine.
Unlike the other organ-on-chip companies on the list, AxoSim researches nerves-on-chip, a rarely developed technology so far. It was created in 2014 at Tutane University and aims to develop the special microfluidic chips to fight cancer.
Similarly to AxoSim, TaraBiosystems focuses on developing a specific chip, the heart-on-chip. The company was created in 2014, at the Columbia University of New York. In order to produce a heartbeat-like movement, TaraBiosystems exposed its chip to electrical stimuli, combining their expertise in biology, material science and electrical engineering.
Cherry Biotech SAS has developed microfluidic cell culture instruments for research laboratories. Today, it focuses on developing a new generation of cell environment control adapted to organs-on-chip.
4Dcell develops and sells cell culture containment systems for research and pharmaceutical laboratories. The company aims to develop artificial “4D” environments that best imitate the micro-environment of the cells within the organs. The tools are destined to increase the in vivo/in vitro correlation in cellular biology experiments for laboratories.
Like Emulate and Hepregen, Nortis Bio was created in an American university: the University of Washington, in 2012. Since then, the company has started to develop organs-on-chips and especially kidneys-on-chip. Their goal is to develop a new generation of in vitro systems to advance research on new treatments and reduce both cost and time of development.
Scientists at BioIVT (formerly BioreclamationIVT) have developed the proprietary OrganDOT™ platform to recapitulate tissue architecture and functionality combining high-quality primary cultures with a robust air-liquid interface. Pancreatic islets and the lung airway epithelium are established models created using this platform.
AlveoliX developed a human lung-on-a-chip model. This model can mimic the biophysical microenvironment of the air-blood barrier of the human lung, including the mechanical stress of inspiration/expiration, and is expected to best predict the effects of respiratory drug candidates in humans and, thereby, reduce the number of clinical trials.
TissUse is a German start-up that was created at the Technische University in Berlin, in 2010. The company produced a diverse range of organs-on-chips, and recently developed a multi-organ-on-chip with 4 organs on the same chip. It is currently developing a new human-on-chip with 10 organs, which would be a great innovation, especially because of how challenging it can be to link so many organs.
BEOnchip designs new devices for cell culture, in the attempt to make the environment of cells as biomimetic as possible. That means to reproduce in the laboratory the same enviromnent that they would have in the human body. With this technology, drug testing would become more feasible, closer to reality and therefore the time and cost of manufacturing new drugs to treat diseases like cancer or heart attacks would decrease.
BiomimX is an organ-on-chip company specialized in the generation of predictive models of human organs and pathologies to test new drugs. Integrating 3D cell culture and mechanical stimulation, the company proposes the next generation of beating organs-on-chips, leading to more reliable, fast responsive and affordable pre-clinical models for screening drug benefit and safety.
Chiron is an organ-on-chip (OoC) company possessing patent-protected technology for mechanically stimulating human cells, which was leveraged to develop an in-vitro joint model to study rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. chiron possesses a competitive advantage as the only OoC company able to provide mechanical stimulation while simultaneously monitoring cells under a microscope, offering access to extremely important information for drug development, cell therapies, as well as scientific discovery. Based on these unique features, chiron’s first product line is focused on recreating the human joint, specifically the knee.
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In this report, we identify the following two main purposes for the 3D cell market
At the beginning of the third millennium, due to prolonged aging, neurodevelopmental disorders are growing and a much deeper understanding of the brain is necessary.
The liver is involved in more than 300 vital functions, but is mainly known for being part of the digestive tract, where it has the extremely important role of metabolizing both xenobiotics and nutrients (carbohydrates and lipids).
A heart-on-chip is a microfluidic chip reproducing the mechanisms of a heart, in order to test medicine quickly and observe the reaction of heart cells. Great care is given to mimic the mechanics of a heart in an artificial structure, lined with live heart cells.
While many animal models have been used to study lung diseases, they lack sufficient similarity with human systems, leaving gaps in what is possible in animal-based platforms.
The lung is the main organ of respiration whose function is to facilitate gas exchange in and out of the blood stream.
It could be extremely interesting to build a human-on-chip that will model the interactions between different organs, but it is also essential to develop simulations of tissue-tissue interfaces and more generally of local organ behavior.
Multi-organs on chip could also allow us to witness the side effects of certain drugs on different organs, not limited to those that the treatment targets.
Since 2012, more and more people, companies or lab, have worked on the organ-on-a-chip. These cell cultures can, thanks to microfluidics, mimic the cells microenvironment of the human body. Thus, these chips could become wonderful search accelerators and we can hope that, in ten years, they could replace the animal testing. Finally, organs on chips could lead us to personalized medicine.
Cell culture consists in growing cells in an artificial environment in order to study their behavior in response to their environment[1]. Different kinds of cell cultures can be found nowadays, and some would be more suited than others depending on its properties and applications.
Organs on chips are microengineered biomimetic systems that replicate key functions of living organs. They provide a more accurate model than conventional cell culture for simulating complex cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions.
Although we take part in various research projects such as artificial photosynthesis, pathogen detection and stem cell differentiation, the ultimate goal of our entrepreneurial adventure is to accelerate anti-aging research.
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