Abstract

Development of Pumpless Single-Organ and Multi-Organ Microphysiological Devices

Mandy Esch, Project Leader, NIST

We developed several pumpless microphysiological cell culture systems that can be used to co-culture interconnected human tissues with near-physiological amounts of recirculating blood surrogate (cell culture medium). Our GI-tract – liver system can simulate the oral uptake and first pass metabolism of drugs, and our two-organ and four-organ systems can be used to detect primary and secondary drug toxicities. Short channel connections and pumpless operation using gravity enabled us to reduce the amount of liquid needed to operate the systems. We demonstrate the systems with tissues scaled at 1/73,000 and cultured under drug exposure for 24 h. Our approach allows us to reduce the dilution of recirculating drug metabolites that cause acute toxicity. Better predictions of drug toxicity and efficacy with in vitro systems are needed, since clinical trials with humans often do not reproduce the results seen with animal models.