A prestigious international 3Rs prize has been awarded for an innovative way to produce organ-on-a-chip systems cheaply and faster.
The prize, awarded by UK NC3Rs and sponsored by GSK, has gone to Dr Daniel Ferreira, at EARA member i3S University of Porto, Portugal (pictured).
He and his colleagues devised a method to enable organ-on-a-chip systems to be designed, developed and printed with commercially available equipment and materials.
Organ-on-a-chip devices consist of cells and/or tissue grown in microfluidic chips, which are composed of a clear flexible polymer - the chips are designed to closely mimic human physiology of a specific organ.
In his research, Daniel demonstrated how the chips can be rapidly designed and assembled to make them more accessible to labs worldwide. He will now use the prize money to establish a microfabrication lab.
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