Organs and organoids chips (MED-OOC) PEPR
The National research programme Organs and Organoids on Chips (PEPR MED-OOC) is part of a high-potential innovation field in personalised medicine, public health, pharmacological research, and clinical trials: organs and organoids on chips based on patient-derived cells.
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Currently, the overall success rate of clinical trials for new drugs is only around 10%. Moreover, animal models are unable to predict human toxicity in at least 50% of cases. Organs and organoids on chips (O&OoC) appear to be a key innovation that will provide human in vitro models that closely resemble in vivo conditions and the physiological reality of human organs. At the intersection of cellular and tissue engineering and microfluidics, OoCs are miniaturized devices containing living organ substructures in a controlled microenvironment. They can reproduce one or several aspects of the architecture, dynamics, and functions of an organ, or even several connected organs, with the possibility of controlling various functions in real-time.
The main objective of the MED-OOC programme is to promote a new generation of OoCs based on patient-derived cells and tissue precursors such as organoids, with the aim of recapitulating the (patho)physiological reality of the patient's organ, combined with advanced "on-chip" monitoring capabilities.
These organs and organoids on chips will offer:
- To researchers, clinicians, and industry, an alternative to animal models and conventional in vitro models, representative of human phenotypic diversity;
- To clinicians, access to standardized "single-organ" or "multi-organ" chips manufactured with the patient's own cells, serving as "clinical twins", indispensable and dynamic complements to "digital twins" currently under development.