How microtechnologies enable organs-on-a-chip

Engineering cellular microenvironments that more accurately reflect the in vivo situation is now recognized as being crucial for the improvement of the in vitro viability and in vivo-like function of cells or tissues. Microfluidic technologies have been increasingly applied since the late 1990's for this purpose, with a growing number of examples of perfused cell and tissue cultures in microfluidic chambers and channels. More recently, additional microfabricated features have been implemented in microfluidic structures to achieve 3-D cell culture systems which mimic not only in vivo fluid flows, but also the structure, transport, and mechanical properties of tissue in, for example, the lung or the intestine. The ultimate challenge becomes the combination of different organ functions into single, linked-compartment devices - the body-on-the-chip.