Brain Organoid on a chip

Test Bed Vision:

“To develop a highly predictive experimental platform to enable high throughput screening of CNS drugs”

Central nervous systems disorders, such as brain cancer and viral encephalitis severely affect individuals while therapeutic possibilities remain limited. The slow evolvement of successful therapeutics targeting central nervous system are due to the blood-brain barrier and drug efflux reporters. Despite numerous promising therapeutics indicated in-vitro, they often fail in pre-clinical trials. Research is restricted due to a lack of physiological relevant in-vitro models that faithfully recapitulate the microenvironment niches of the blood-brain-barrier within the brain.

This test bed aims to develop a physiological relevant robust in-vitro 3-dimensional brain organoid on a chip with functioning blood-brain-barrier We will apply this model in high-throughput screening of targeted chemotherapeautics against brain cancer and interrogate their interactions with the brain cells. Finally, it will apply this platform to decipher the microenvironmental characteristics in a developing brain/blood-brain-barrier that makes the brain vulnerable to viral infections and testing on the next generation of Antiviral agents.

This test bed is led by Nico Veolcker, Helmut Thissen and Stephen Rose with assistance from Wing Tong (John Stocker Fellow) from the Manufacturing and Health and Biosecurity Business Units at CSIRO.