Qasem Ramadan, Alfaisal University,Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is an ambitious emerging technology with a great potential to enable in-depth studies of disease pathogenesis and therapy, hence opening new avenues for drug discovery, toxicology, and personalized medicine and offer a reliable alternative to animal models. In vivo, the organ(s) function is orchestrated by complex cellular structure and physiochemical factors within the Extracellular Matrix and secreted by various cells. Microfabrication and microfluidics technologies provide tools to create advanced cell culture systems, which can be employed to create in vivo-like cellular microenvironments and recapitulate specific tissue structure and physiological parameters. Here we will describe a compartmentalized microfluidic system for OOC that enables co-culturing of several cell types in close proximity with enhanced cell-cell interaction. We will then discuss three immune-competent micro-physiological models, namely the human gastrointestinal tract, the human epidermis, and the adipose tissue, the interaction of immune cells with these tissues, and their role in inflammation. We will emphasize the interaction between the adipocytes and immune cells to highlight the role of immune cell infiltration in the adipose tissue in the pathogenesis of diabetes type 2.