Building blocks for a European Organ-on-Chip roadmap

This paper summarizes the outcome of the Organ-on-Chip (OoC) ORCHID Strategy workshop (Leiden, the Netherlands, 17 January 2019) intended to establish a European OoC roadmap through expert discussions, conclusions and recommendations. The workshop identified six specific building blocks for the OoC roadmap: (1) application, (2) specification, (3) qualification, (4) standardization, (5) production and upscaling, and (6) adoption. Complementary aspects relating to ethics and communication were also addressed. Priorities, methods and targets for the roadmap were proposed for each building block. General consensus was reached on the potential contribution of the newly founded European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS), which could facilitate deployment of each block. EUROoCS would ideally initiate and catalyze dialogue between OoC developers, end users and regulators. The dialogue should address qualification, open technology platforms, standardization and implementation of OoC technology, as well as ethical aspects of human tissue mimics, training the next generation of OoC researchers, dissemination and communication.