Engineering tissue specific scaffolds for organ-on-a-chip models

Pharmaceutical R&D is extremely costly since it depends on animal models for pre-clinical approval. Nonetheless, they still fail to recapitulate human physiopathology. Thus, Organ-on-a-Chip (OOC) systems were created as a future alternative since these are microfluidic systems that mimic the architecture and function of an in vivo organ environment.

One of the challenges for the validation of OOCs is the optimisation of the system’s scaffold, a key component since it emulates the structural framework of the cellular environment. State-of-art scaffolds within this area have been proven to not be improved, which can lead to unreliable data results. In this project, we aim to optimise and standardise scaffolds for in-house OOC systems, through the creation and assessment of different materials and manufacturing techniques so that the OOC technology can be validated as an alternative pre-clinical model to animals within the research industry.

Within this project electrospinning and 3D printing will be used to produce scaffolds of varying architecture with different hydrogels to optimise parameters for different cell types.

Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project

Dr. Ruth Mackay - Dr. Mackay, a Mechanical Engineer, has a keen interest in the biomedical field. She earned her undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Dundee in 2007. Following that, she pursued her PhD in Micro-electromechanical Systems in 2011, also at the University of Dundee, with funding from a CASE grant provided by the EPSRC in collaboration with IDB Technologies. In 2011, she joined Brunel as a Research Fellow, contributing to a translational MRC grant focused on developing point-of-care devices. Subsequently, in 2015, she assumed the role of a Lecturer at Brunel. Her research centers around organ-on-a-chip technologies, low-cost point-of-care diagnostic devices, and prosthetics.  She currently leads the Organ on a Chip Group at Brunel. Additionally, she lectures in the fields of Finite Element Analysis and Medical Device Engineering.

Dr Elisabete Silva -

Related Research Group(s)

Non-traditional Manufacturing Technologies - Development, application, and implementation of non-traditional manufacturing technologies: electro-discharge machining, electrochemical machining, laser technologies, vibration machining of brittle materials, abrasive flow machining, electroforming, diamond machining, ultrasonic machining and many more.

Organ-on-a-Chip - The group’s main research focus is on women’s health and developing four main organ-on-a-chip (OOC) models: the breast, vagina, ovary, and placenta.

Project last modified 21/11/2023