Question

How can "organ-on-chip" systems play a pivotal role in streamlining the clinical trial process?

Answer 1

It is quite interesting to note that new application of organ-on-chip technologies in a range of areas in pre-clinical drug discovery has been emerging gradually for improving the effectiveness of pre-clinical predictions of human drug responses in clinical trials for reducing costly failures. Organ-on-chip platforms have proven enough potentiality in providing wonderful flexibility and validity in drug screening and development by employing engineering techniques and materials. As for example recent advances in stem cell engineering might be integrated into the Organ-on-chip technology to develop personalized models to predict patient-specific toxicity and efficacy. This might probably lead to more efficient human trials with less time investment in development of new pharmaceutical agents and also significantly reduced other pre-clinical testing requirements. Moreover, the Organ-on-chip models could be used to screen and as well as validate potential biological targets/ bio-markers identified by genomics and proteomics analyses. Therefore, such developments might have the potentiality to transform the process of drug discovery processes for the future, which may contribute directly to clinical trial phases and also to overcome the challenges for the pharmaceuticals growth of the market.