Organ-on-a-Chip

The core technological foundation of organ-on-a-chip is microfluidics, that is, the precise manipulation of trace amounts of fluid in channels at millimeter or even micrometer scale.

The advantage of organoids and organ-on-a-chip over animal models lies in their human origin—they directly use human cells, avoiding extrapolation errors caused by species differences.

The limitations of organoids and organ-on-a-chip include: a single organ chip can hardly reflect interactions among multiple organs, and the stability of long-term culture, batch-to-batch consistency, and the degree of standardization remain bottlenecks.

Organ-on-a-chip is a miniature physiological system built on a microfluidic chip that simulates key functions of human organs by precisely controlling fluid, mechanical forces and the cellular microenvironment.

The 2022 FDA Modernization Act 2.0 was passed by the U.S. Congress and eliminated the mandatory requirement for animal testing in new drug approvals.

Currently, organoids and organ-on-a-chip are regarded as complementary rather than mutually exclusive alternatives to animal testing.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 does not ban animal testing, but rather allows pharmaceutical companies, with FDA recognition, to use human-cell-based alternative methods (such as organoids, organ-on-a-chip, and computer models) to meet safety assessment requirements.

Replacing animal testing is an irreversible direction, but the specific technical routes are still competing, with organoids, organ-on-a-chip, and AI-driven computational toxicology each having their own adherents.