Cisca Wijmenga and Rinse Weersma (Gastroenterology) are leading the Groningen Institute for Gastro Intestinal Genetics and Immunology (3GI). The PIs involved in 3GI (amongst others Hermie Harmsen, Dept. of Medical Microbiology; Rinse Weersma, Dept. of Gastroenterology; Klaas Nico Faber, Dept. of Gastrointestinal and Liver Diseases; Sven van Ijzendoorn, Dept. of Cell Biology) have a shared interest in intestinal stem cells, iPSC cells, and organ-on-chip technology. Hermie Harmsen collects the Lifelines microbiomes which can be cultured (culturomics) and has, together with Klaas Nico Faber, already developed a macro-sized, closed system in which gut bacteria can grow on and interact with epithelial cells. Klaas Nico Faber and Sven van Ijzendoorn are working on intestinal biopsy and urine derived iPS cells. Rinse Weersma is the head of the Dept.of Gastroenterology and uses genomics to study Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Moreover, he collects biopsy samples from IBD and Celiac disease (CeD) patients. Together with Cisca Wijmenga, Rinse Weersma is applying single cell RNA sequencing (scRNAseq) to study the cell populations present in these biopsies. All the stem cell work, iPSC work and scRNAseq work performed by these groups is performed at the iPSC/CRISPR Facility of the UMCG, the Next Generation Sequencing Center of the UMCG and the single cell DNA sequencing facility of ERIBA. Cisca Wijmenga is currently setting up a cord blood stem cell biobank (LifelinesCBSC) in close collaboration with Floris Foijer who heads the iPSC/CRISPR Facility. The iPSC/CRISPR facility has already developed standard operating procedures for the generation of urine-derived iPSCs and is engineering the genome of these iPSCs using CRISPR technology. In the next year, the iPSC/CRISPR centre will focus on differentiating iPSCs into neurons (with Bart Eggen, Molecular NeuroScience and Aging Research), cardiomyocytes (with Peter van de Meer, Cardiology) and hepatocytes (with Sven van Ijzendoorn). Altogether, these efforts will benefit the organ-on-chip projects at the UMCG (and the hDMT as a whole), as they will allow for ‘personalized organ-on-chip’ approaches.

Other UMCG researchers interested in organ-on-chip technology which were not mentioned above are:
Jon Laman Molecular NeuroScience and Aging Research; neuroinflammation and gut-brain axis,
Rob Coppes, Radiation Oncology & Cell Biology, salivary gland organoids, Jan Meilof ,Dept. of Neurology, collects skin fibroblasts from Multiple Sclerosis patients to create iPS cells.
Cor Calkhoven, ERIBA, cancer-on-chip,
Vinod Kumar, Genetics, endothelium-on-chip.
Folkert Kuipers, Pediatrics, liver-on-chip. 
Barbara Bakker, Pediatrics, intestinal organoids. 
Maaike Oosterveer, Pediatrics; iPS hepatocytes/microfluidics. 
Peter van den Akker, Dermatology & Clinical Genetics, skin-on-a chip.

Several additional facilities are available at the UMCG for performing state-of-the-art molecular biology and cell biology research, including The Microscopy and Imaging Center, the Facility for Proteomics and Metabolomics, and The Flow Cytometry Facility.

– The LifelinesNext-BabyVir project (ERC Starting Grant to Sasha Zhernakova, UMCG, Dept. of Genetics, 2016) aims to determine how the human bacterial microbiome is shaped by the virome (viruses and bacteriophages) during the first year of life of 1,000 babies of Lifelines mothers.
– LifelinesDAG3 (started 2017) aims to determine the microbiome of 10,000 Lifelines subjects. New aspects are the virome and the collection of the culturome that can be added to a ‘gut-on-chip’.
– LifelinesGSA (GSA = Genomewide Screening Array) aims to genotype 60,000 Lifelines subjects. Using the trio design of the cohort, genotypes of the subjects that are not analysed can be imputed.
– LifelinesCBSC (CBSC = Cord Blood Stem Cells) aims to create a cord blood derived stem cell bank.

Systems biology analyses on data acquired in these studies, generate hypotheses which can be tested on ‘organ-on-chip’. Moreover, when cells are collected these could be used to generate organs-on-chip.