From animal testing to in vitro systems: advancing standardization in microphysiological systems

Published

February 15, 2024

Author(s)

Darwin Reyes-Hernandez, Mandy Esch, Lorna Ewart, Rohollah Nasiri, Anna Herland, Carolina Lucchesi, Kyung Sung, MONICA PIERGIOVANNI, Jelena Vukasinovic, James Shoemaker, Nureddin Ashammakhi

Abstract

Limitations with cell cultures and experimental animal-based studies have had the scientific and industrial communities searching for new approaches that can provide reliable human models for applications such as drug development, toxicological assessment, and in vitro pre-clinical evaluation. This has resulted in the development of microfluidic-based cultures that may better represent organs and organ systems in vivo than conventional monolayer cell cultures. Although there is considerable interest from industry and regulatory bodies in this technology, several challenges need to be addressed for it to reach its full potential. Among those is a lack of guidelines and standards. Therefore, a multidisciplinary team of stakeholders was formed, with members from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), European Union, academia, and industry, to provide a framework for future development of guidelines/standards governing engineering concepts of organ-ona- chip models. The result of this work is presented here for interested parties, stakeholders, and other standards development organizations (SDOs) to foster further discussion and enhance the impact and benefits of these efforts.

Citation

Lab on A Chip

Volume

24

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

Organ-on-a-chip, artificial organs, standards, microfluidics, guidelines

Citation

Reyes-Hernandez, D. , Esch, M. , Ewart, L. , Nasiri, R. , Herland, A. , Lucchesi, C. , Sung, K. , PIERGIOVANNI, M. , Vukasinovic, J. , Shoemaker, J. and Ashammakhi, N. (2024), From animal testing to in vitro systems: advancing standardization in microphysiological systems, Lab on A Chip, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=956254 (Accessed October 13, 2025)