A Novel Microfludic Device for Drug Toxicity Studies

Current drug discovery and development programs are severely limited by the expensive animal trials and oversimplified in vitro models. Results obtained from the in vitro models are not predictive of in vivo toxicity owing to significant difference in testing from the in vivo physiological conditions. In this context, we propose to develop and demonstrate a novel microfluidic device for quantitative prediction of the toxicity of the drug agent. This device while accelerating the drug screening development process will also reduce animal trials significantly. Our device accurately reproduces the physiological conditions (morphology, flow and cellular make-up) comprising of the respective cells from the targeted organ of interest. Phase I effort will focus on proof of concept studies using liver cells (hepatocytes) as model for toxicity analysis. In Phase II, the device will be extended to include cells from other targeted organs of interest. Animal experiments will be performed to validate the in vitro model. A high throughput device will be developed by integrating the developed prototype with microwell plates.