Loss of vision has a profound impact on quality of life, and is associated with substantial direct costs for medical treatment, assistive devices and informal care, as well as indirect costs related to productivity loss, change in employment and loss of income. Importantly, the disability is associated with emotional distress and risk of depression due to its profound impact on daily life, with loss of independency and an increased risk of hazards like falling and injury. Vision loss and blindness affect over 3% of the population in Europe and this number is increasing due to an aging population and the rise in diabetes.

Major causes of visual impairment or blindness in Europe are age-related macular degeneration, cataract, glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. Multiple parts and tissues of the eye, including the lens, the cornea, the optic nerve, the outer retina and the inner retina, as well as various risk factors, such as genetics, environmental factors, nutritional, metabolic and immunological factors, are involved in the various disease mechanisms. Given this multifactorial nature of eye disease, there is a strong need for experimental models to understand the mechanism of disease, as well as for drug discovery and development.

Development of experimental models of the eye and the associated diseases is a major challenge, because the anatomy of the eye and its tissues, including its vasculature, is intricate and highly structured.

For an experimental model to capture functional aspects of eye disease, it will be necessary to at least capture some of the heterogeneity and tissue complexity of the eye, as well as to allow the controlled integration of specific risk factors and mechanistic factors.

Promising studies have shown that Organ-on-Chip technology can be applied to engineer models with sufficient complexity for specific pathophysiological processes like choroid neovascularization and photoreceptor outer segment phagocytosis to be captured. Such studies center mostly on addressing the engineering challenges, and therefore highlight the need for multidisciplinary development by building project groups with sufficient biomedical, (stem) cell biological and technical expertise and to include direct connections between stakeholders from academia, pharmaceutical industry, hi-tech industry.