Microfluidic based human-on-a-chip: A revolutionary technology in scientific research

Detrimental drug toxicity and failure in efficacy during clinical trials is one of the major hurdles faced by the pharmaceutical companies. Conventionally, preclinical safety evaluation is performed in 2D cell cultures and animal models. However, the response of a drug seen in laboratory animals and cells grown as monolayers differs from how cells inside a human body respond. This is due to the lack of multi-organ interaction in cell cultures and species specificity between animal and human. Recently, progress in organ-on-a-chip (OoC) including multi-organ-on-a-chip (MoC) platform offers fast and cost-effective alternative approach to screen drugs authentically. Advanced human-on-a-chip (HoC) consists of several human organs held together in a hierarchical and physiological pattern crafting an in vitro human model. HoC recapitulates the structural and functional integrity of human system and overcomes the limitations of traditional protocols and inaccessibility to human models. In HoC, cells are cultured in a sterile controlled environment that allows manipulation of physico-chemical factors, monitoring molecular and functional aspects in a more realistic environment. It also upgrades the knowledge on pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of compounds. There is no doubt that HoC technology is a game changer that will revolutionize clinical research in the upcoming years. This review explains the evolution of OoC to HoC, their potential use and limitations. More emphasis has been given on the potential use of HoC in pharmacology. Pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions and regulatory agencies should initiate a joint venture to launch and utilize the full potential of HoC technology as a next generation alternative to preclinical or disease modelling studies.