Organ-on-a-chip: Fabrication methods and biomedical applications

Organ-on-a-chip has emerged as a new technique for constructing normal or diseased models in vitro, attracting rapidly increasing attention from researchers and clinics. Similar to other traditional methods, the main advantages of organ-on-a-chip are its high portability, high throughput and ability to replicate microenvironment cells. Thus organ-on-a-chip holds great potential in disease pathogenesis study, drug screening, etc. In this paper, we reviewed the history of organ-on-a-chip and discussed the main constitutions and materials of organs-on-chips. Through evaluating the existing organs-on-chips, we proposed that a highly integrated organ-on-a-chip should include four elements, microfluidic chip, cells or microtissues, microenvironment building implementing parts, and microsensors. The manufacturing methods were summarized for each item. Besides, the latest developments in organ-on-a-chip and clinical technology problems have been added. In the end, this paper addressed organ-on-a-chip’s future directions.