Human-on-a-chip design strategies and principles for physiologically based pharmocokinetics/pharmacodynamics modeling

摘要

Advances in maintaining multiple human tissues on microfluidic platforms has led to a growing interest in developing microphysiological systems for drug development studies. Determining the proper design principles and scaling rules for body-on-a-chip systems is critical for their strategic incorporation into physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK)/pharmacodynamic model (PD) -aided drug development. While the need for a functional design considering organ-organ interactions has been considered, robust design criteria and steps to build such systems have not yet been defined mathematically. In this paper, we first discuss strategies for incorporating body-on-a-chip technology into current PBPK modeling-based drug discovery to provide a conceptual model. We propose two types of platforms that can be involved in different stages of PBPK modeling and drug development; these are a μOrgans-on-a-chip and a μHuman-on-a-chip. Then we establish design principles for both types of systems and develop parametric design equations that can be used to determine dimensions and operating conditions. In addition, we discuss the availability of the critical parameters required to satisfy the design criteria, consider possible limitations on estimating such parameter values and propose strategies to address such limitations. This paper is intended to be a useful guide to the researchers focused on designing microphysiological platforms for PBPK/PD based drug discovery.