Abstract

Nervous System-on-a-Chip: Closing the Knowledge Gap Between in vitro and in vivo Experiments

Regina Luttge, Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology

Many advances in in vitro technologies to study brain cell cultures have been made by means of microfluidic Brain-on-a-Chips. However, the development of Brain-on-Chips primarily focus on the implementation of cortical cells from human stem cell source in a 3D cultured microenvironment. Instead, the objective of our EU project CONNECT is to mimic the in vivo functions of the nervous system in one connected chip system. Hence, the project brings together the knowledge accumulated among neuroscientists, stem cell experts and engineers to investigate the origins and possible treatments for Parkinson's disease in an extension of the brain-on-chip model, called nervous system-on-chip, linking tissue of the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system. In this presentation, we discuss the importance of instructive micromechanical cues next to the complexity of culture conditions in nervous system on a chip that can be simplified by selecting scaffolding materials containing instructive physical cues by design rather than ill-defined and poorly controllable biological matrices. Finally, we pinpoint on the importance to correlate findings in vitro with observations to be correlated with results from in vivo modeling.