PRESS RELEASE UNLOOC PROJECT
Instead of animal testing: new micro-devices speed up drug testing
Researchers at the Institute of Engineering Physics and Materials Science of the HUN-REN Energy Research Centre (HUN-REN EK MFA) are involved in an international collaboration to develop complex microchips that can analyse artificially maintained tissues by integrating modern microelectronic, optical, microfluidic and microbiological systems with AI-based models.
The rapidly evolving Organ-on-Chip technology aims to replicate the physiological and functional properties of human organs on a microstructured platform – to understand their function, their interactions at the biochemical level, and to analyse the efficacy, toxicity and pharmacokinetics of drugs. These in-silico models help to eliminate animal testing in the preliminary testing of pharmaceutical compounds and cosmetic active ingredients, but also allow a relevant evaluation of their reliability and efficacy. A particular challenge in the development of surrogate in vitro models is the automated analysis and interpretation of the chemical environment and the complex biological responses to it.
Accordingly, in the UNLOOC project, a multidisciplinary team of participating researchers will develop, optimise, test and deploy a technology platform based on Organ-on-Chip devices suitable for highly parallelised use in drug discovery tests (including sampling, sample handling fluidics, cell culture platforms, sensor systems for biological process monitoring). The consortium will demonstrate the performance of the platforms through practical examples (e.g. Skin-on-Chip).
Experts from the Microsystems Laboratory of HUN-REN EC will be involved in the development of sensor systems (optical, electrochemical and plasmonic) for continuous monitoring of the concentration of drug substances and other marker molecules relevant in biological experiments.
The main goal of Hungarian researchers:
- Development of a microfluidic cell compatible with OOC technology and its fabrication technology for optical spectroscopy measurements,
- Development of a modular UV-VIS / NIR / Raman measurement setup with integrated readout electronics and software environment,
- Development of a manufacturing and encapsulation technology for wide-wavelength infrared LEDs – and its development up to prototype level,
- Design and fabrication of special electrode structures for electrochemical measurements.
The 51-member European consortium, led by the German company Microfluidic Chipshop GmbH, aims to develop OOC technology that will not only enable controlled drug testing, but also the modelling of disease pathophysiology and, in the long term, personalised medicine. In the future, the tools developed in the UNLOOC project will help to test drugs safer and faster by mimicking human tissues, even with samples from individual patients. In the longer term, the results obtained could even be used for the personalised design of (chemo)therapeutic protocols, which could be a direct extension and translation of the project.
The project 2024-1.2.4-KDT-2024-00001 ‘UNLOOC – Organ-on-Chip systems (Hungarian participation in the 101140192 Horizon Europe project)’ was funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund.
Further information, contact:
https://www.unlooc.eu/project, https://www.mfa.kfki.hu/kutatas/projektek/unlooc/
Dr. Péter Fürjes, head of laboratory, leader of UNLOOC Hungarian team, furjes.peter@ek.hun-ren.hu