Development of a novel organs-on-a-chip platform for nanodrug delivery and functionality testing to treat Parkinson’s disease - nanoPD

Project summary

The proposed project intends to establish the usage of on-chip-solutions, with integrated sensors, for in vitro disease modeling and to study the ability of the newly-designed nanodrug delivery systems (NDDSs) to deliver therapeutic agents to midbrain-organoids using membrane-integrated microfluidic devices. A particular focus is aiming at developing an organs-on-a-chip device for Parkinson’s disease (PD) that should address the effect of biological barriers for disease onset and treatment and elucidate the drug inhibiting mechanisms. The success of this project would not only provide insights on the mechanisms and principles on designing these NDDSs, but also drastically reduce the use of animal models for drugs and therapy testing. Moreover, it will highlight the development of a novel screening platform with patient specific induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) for advanced personalized medicine.