Multistep Fluidic Control Network toward the AutomatedGeneration of Organ-on-a-Chip

Organ-on-a-chip, which mimics physiological functions of organs, is a potential tool for drug development and precision medicine. This chip, accompanied by a suitable culture environment and appropriate culture procedure, allows cells to form functional tissues that can be used in drug tests. Due to difficulties in maintenance of cells and complex nature of tissue development process, it is essential to develop an automated culture platform to avoid contamination and reduce operational errors during long-term tissue culture. In this study, we developed a semi-automatic culture platform that integrates with a multi-step fluidic control network, which allows multiple culture steps to be controlled and meets the requirement of the air-liquid interface (ALI), while maintaining a dynamic flow onto the cells. The culture platform was assembled with a culture chip, a reservoir, a miniaturized peristaltic pump, and a fluidic control base to connect each component and to operate the multiple culture steps. To demo...