Recent Advances in Body-on-a-Chip Systems.

Microphysiological systems (MPS, also known as 'organ-on-a-chip', 'body-on-a-chip', or 'human-on-a-chip') have emerged over the last fifteen years as attractive systems to probe response to pharmaceutical or chemicals. While applicable to animals, such systems are particularly powerful in predicting human response prior to clinical testing of a drug or as augmentation of clinical studies to test underlying mechanisms. The rate of development of such systems has increased exponentially, particularly over the last three years. Organ-on-a-chip systems have evolved in sophistication and ability to model details of organ physiology, allowing better understanding of underlying mechanisms of response to drugs and chemicals. Body-on-a-chip (BOC) systems are multi-organ systems, often designed to emulate human physiological response to drugs and have the potential to capture both efficacy of a drug and potential toxicity in other organs. While the focus has been on human response to pharmaceuticals, such systems can evaluate response to general chemical exposure, which is important in evaluating the safety of chemicals, food ingredients, and cosmetics. Here, we review recent progresses in the development of model systems over the last three years, with particular focus on BOC systems.