Organ-On-A-Chip: A Cutting-Edge Drug Testing Device
What comes to your mind when you hear the term “organ-on-a-chip”? The current drug development procedures are very costly and time-consuming. According to estimates, each new drug takes ten years to develop and costs more than three billion dollars to bring to market. Furthermore, even though animal models used in laboratories for drug testing have significantly enhanced our knowledge and understanding of novel medicines development, there remains a significant gap between animal and human studies. As animal models do not accurately reflect human physiology, hence drug testing procedures also lack accuracy. Despite significant advances in computational and in vitro biology and toxicology over the last two decades, statistics show a failure rate of 80% in clinical trials, with 60% due to inefficiency and 30% due to toxicity. (Low et al., 2021) More predictive modeling and testing platforms for human responses are thus critical for accelerating the development of nove...