| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/Y034678/1 |
| Title: |
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Organ-on-a-Chip Technologies (COaCT) |
| Principal Investigator: |
Screen, Professor H |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-Investigators: |
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| Project Partners: |
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| Department: |
School of Engineering & Materials Scienc |
| Organisation: |
Queen Mary University of London |
| Scheme: |
Centre for Doctoral Training |
| Starts: |
01 July 2024 |
Ends: |
30 September 2032 |
Value (£): |
7,066,812
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Biomaterials |
Med.Instrument.Device& Equip. |
| Tissue engineering |
Tools for the biosciences |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
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| Panel History: |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
Maintaining sustainable productivity of pharmaceutical research and development is one of the most significant challenges faced by this major UK industry. Pre-clinical models for testing drug safety and efficacy are poorly predictive of human response, making our ability to translate new scientific discovery to impactful therapy extremely costly and time consuming.
Organ-chips are small, bioengineered devices which replicate important aspects of human health and disease, and thus provide the predictivity of human response required to transform therapeutic delivery. The organ-chip industry is one of the fastest growing worldwide, as the transformative potential of organ-chip technology is realised. For the UK to ensure ongoing growth and productivity of the pharmaceutical industry, it is imperative we deliver a workforce able to advance this technology and bring it into use, to drive successful healthcare innovation.
COaCT sets a transformative vision to bring together the full stakeholder community in organ-chip technology, to collectively develop and deliver a training programme designed to equip graduates with the skills and knowledge required to be the next generation of leaders in organ-chip technology and advance the technology into regulatory use.
We focus on three core areas:
1. delivering the technical skills required to design, manufacture and advance organ-chip models: Organ-chip models are microfluidic devices, in which the physics of managing organ growth and drug delivery are different to those in standard cell cultures. We provide training to ensure students understand how to work with a wide range of commercial organ-chip systems and build their own devices, appreciating the specific biosensing, nano-patterning, mechanobiology, microfluidics and microfabrication requirement of organ-chip systems, and the rationale and decision making associated with selecting different approaches, so they are fully prepared to work across the sector in future roles.
2. ensuring students are equipped with the broader understanding of the societal implications of the technology, and the regulatory and policy changes which will be necessary to ensure impactful delivery. There is clear potential for organ-chip approaches to revolutionise therapeutic discovery, but for the technology to achieve its potential, it is imperative that the field fully considers and responds to the societal and regulatory environment as it evolves and develops, thus our future leaders must be fully trained in this area.
3. providing a focus on transferable skills training, to help students develop into effective future leaders in this field: The rapid growth of organ-chip technology offers exciting future opportunities for researchers shaping the field. To be effective in driving the field, it is important graduates possess the transferable skills to lead teams and companies designing or implementing organ-chip technology, and are able to communicate effectively with the broad range of stakeholders involved.
Our stakeholder community brings together the pharmaceutical and organ-chip industries, varied medicine-related regulatory bodies, policy groups, and charities, all with a strong commitment to deliver organ-chip technology. The COaCT investigator team have been leading the efforts of this stakeholder community to coordinate and drive organ-chip research for the last 5 years, though leadership of the UK organ-on-a-chip technologies network. Indeed, the ideas for the CDT scope and training remit have been developed collectively through those discussion panels and workshops.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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