Category Archives: Uncategorized

New, newer, newest

A new year is a new start. This first newsletter in 2022 is full of new people, initiatives, projects, publications, a new website and events on Organ-on-Chip within hDMT. We are glad that Jaap den Toonder from Eindhoven University of Technology will join us in the hDMT Executive Board. And we welcome Marian Joëls, Dean and member of the UMCG Management Board, as new member of the hDMT Supervisory Board. Three PhD students recently received their PhD degree after public defence of their thesis. Bas Lendemeijer from Erasmus MC has used human induced pluripotent stem cells for modeling brain diseases...

Read more

ZonMW Psider grant for Erasmus MC on a stem cell-based neuronal platform for treatment of neurodevelopmental disorders

ZonMw has awarded a PSIDER grant to a consortium led by Steven Kushner and Ype Elgersma from Erasmus MC. The grant is entitled ‘Towards a human iPSC neuronal platform for neurodevelopmental disorder therapeutic discovery’ and is a collaborative project between researchers from Erasmus MC, LUMC, Radboudumc and UMC Utrecht. Children with a genetic developmental disorder often require lifelong care, which has a major impact on the lives of patients, loved ones and society. In this project researchers will try to find a solution by repairing the genetic mutation using so-called ‘antisense oligonucleotides’. The goal is to develop a platform for identifying...

Read more

Rapid Prototyping of Organ-on-Chip Devices Using Maskless Photolithography

Dhanesh Kasi and colleagues have developed a cleanroom-free microfabrication procedure for rapid prototyping of Organ-on-Chip and microfluidic devices. Organ-on-Chip (OoC) refers to biomimetic microdevices that contain cell culture compartments and/or microfluidic channels and (human) cells. They may also include integrated sensors for functional measurements, or valves to control fluid flows. Chips are usually produced in cleanroom facilities that contain specialized equipment for microfabrication. A fast and low-threshold method for fabricating simple OoC and microfluidic devices is beneficial to reduce prototyping times, and lowers barriers for labs to perform OoC research. A simplified and cleanroom-free microfabrication procedure by using a digital...

Read more

Pim de Haan defends PhD thesis on gut-on-a-chip work

On Friday, November 19th, 2021 Pim de Haan successfully defended his PhD thesis titled ‘Microfluidic digestive systems for drug analysis’ at the University of Groningen. He conducted his PhD research in the Pharmaceutical Analysis group at the Groningen Research Institute of Pharmacy, with Prof. Sabeth Verpoorte as thesis advisor and dr. Klaus Mathwig as co-adviser. Dr Pim de Haan and Prof Sabeth Verpoorte. His research, which was funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), focused on the development of gut-on-a-chip devices for drug and toxicology testing. In collaboration with Wageningen University and a team of industrial partners, a modular system...

Read more

Editorial November 2021

Vital network on Organ-on-Chip With this last hDMT newsletter of 2021 we look back to another fruitful year with many new initiatives, grants and researchers in the field of Organ-on-Chip. During the recent annual hDMT Consortium meeting with many participants online, we have officially ended the lustrum year by presenting the booklet on 5 years of hDMT. We would like to thank all people within the hDMT Consortium for their valuable contribution to the Organ-on-Chip field and for being part of our vital community during the past 5 years. Now the year 2022 lies ahead with new big challenges for...

Read more

Two exciting events on NXTGEN HIGHTECH and Biomedical Production Technologies. Register now!

The ‘Groeifonds’ proposal NXTGEN HIGHTECH will be submitted this month. One of the six domains of NXTGEN HIGHTECH is ‘Biomedical Production Technologies’ and is being coordinated by Berend van Meer on behalf of hDMT. This domain aims at large scale production of Labs-on-Chips, Organs-on-Chips, Artificial Organs and Cell Production Equipment, in which industrial standardisation and qualification are indispensable. The consortium of partners from science, industry and regulators, responsible for this domain will celebrate the submission of this application in two different events. Webinar ‘Opportunities in Lifescience Technologies for the hightech ecosystem’ (in Dutch) Organizer: High Tech NL Date: 9 November 2021,...

Read more

Research theme challenges gut liver

A Gut-on-Chip and a Liver-on-Chip, or the combination of both model systems on an integrated platform requires a careful considerations of the minimal organ functionality that needs to be emulated in vitro. For several reasons innovative experimental models are needed, for instance to: understand the course of intestinal and liver diseases Better understand the natural course of both intestinal and liver diseases. For instance celiac disease, Crohn disease and other inflammatory bowel diseases. Inflammatory liver diseases that include fibrotic processes are still not fully understood, and clearly lack robust human like in vitro models, hindering our current understanding of the...

Read more

Summer around the corner

Many of you might already enjoy a nice summer break or will do that soon during the next weeks or months. Let’s hope that corona allows us to leave our computers and relax after a busy period with many online meetings. One of those meetings was the annual EUROoCS 2021 conference with more than 430 participants from 26 different countries, 6 keynotes, 40 lectures and 170 posters, thanks to the excellent organization and hosting by Maria Tenje from Uppsala University. hDMT researcher Ulgu Arslan from Leiden University Medical Center received the ‘Best Presentation Award’ for her talk about ‘Vascularized three-dimensional...

Read more

Mieke Schutte (outgoing Managing Director of hDMT)

Why are you leaving hDMT? Since my arrival at hDMT in 2015 I have combined my 2-day position as its managing director with another position at the Lorentz Center. The combination of hDMT with the Lorentz Center has always been a natural balance. I believe in hDMT as an innovative and constructive research organization and I was therefore very happy to continue to be part of the hDMT management when I moved to manage the Mathematical Institute of Leiden University last year. However, it turned out that the Mathematical Institute requires my full-time commitment. I found it difficult to be...

Read more

Welcome and farewell

Spring 2021 has brought changes in the hDMT organization. Mieke Schutte, managing director and member of the hDMT Executive Board, has left hDMT after five years. Mieke has been vital for building up the hDMT consortium in its current form, by stimulating scientists from academia and companies to collaborate and develop Organ-on-Chip models. As crown on her work the 4.8 M euro SMART OoC project was awarded by NWO to a multidisciplinary team of 10 researchers affiliated with hDMT and 26 private partners. The prestigious grant enables standardization as the next step in maturation and acceptance of Organ-on-Chip technology. We are...

Read more