The Netherlands Organ-on-Chip Initiative (NOCI), funded by the NWO/OCW Gravity program, is half way its ten year research program and preparing for its midterm evaluation. The NOCI project focuses on brain, heart and gut on chip and their interactions, using pluripotent stem cells from patients that are grown in a controlled way in the chip platforms to form organ structures that mimick those in the human body.

NOCI program leader and chair of hDMT Christine Mummery explains: "NOCI is preparing for its mid-term review in 2021 and as part of the process invited its 'Critical Friends' Matthias Lutolf (EPFL) and Don Ingber (Wyss) together with its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) members Peter Loskill (Fraunhofer), Philippe Renaud (EPFL) and Janny van den Eijnden-van Raaij (hDMT) to join its annual meeting last October and give feedback. Senior and junior researchers presented their results and future plans at the meeting and received advice. The critical friends and SAB were very impressed about the results that the NOCI researchers have achieved in the past few years. Their recommendations have been integrated in the final mid-term report submitted to the University of Leiden and NWO in November 2020. A panel of experts will evaluate the request for financing of the second part of the program by interview in February 2021 that will include discussion with PhD students and postdocs on the grant."