BEOnChip S.L. is a leading Spanish company focused on the field of Micro-biotechnology. We have fully engineered microchips that recapitulate the microarchitecture and functions of living human organs. These microchips, called “organs-on-chips”, can be defined as micro-sized artificial organs and can revolutionize drug development. Now, in the B-On-Chip project we seek bringing to the market the first compact, fully automated and easy-to-use device to link multiple organs-on-chip, enabling the so called body-on-chip experiments. The use of B-On-Chip by the Pharma industry in new drug discovery, has the potential to slash the use of laboratory animals in drug testing. Furthermore, the more realistic data offered by B-On-Chip will accelerate drug development and allow researchers to carry out experiments too risky for human volunteers. Moreover, by linking different “organ-on-chips” together, it will be possible to study how reactions in one organ affect another. B-On-Chip will offer the most accurate data on new drug efficiency, security, toxicity in a fast, automatic and reliable way, with the breakthrough advantage of being able to offer these results in in vitro experiments.

Our project focuses on the regulatory properties of a subset of microbiota-specific TR1-like regulatory T (Treg) cells, for which we have already shown an unprecedented association with the clinical outcome of patients in various inflammatory diseases, for a therapeutic use in inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). IBD is a disabling chronic inflammatory process that affects young individuals and causes many life-altering symptoms, and represents a risk factor for colon cancer. Existing treatments are complex, with most people requiring lifelong medications as well as dietary and lifestyle modifications, and some requiring surgery. In this context, the development of new therapeutic approaches appears essential and immunotherapy and cell-based therapy are particularly promising strategies for this disease. Teams from Nantes have a strong expertise in the field of human immunology, mucosal immunology and immunotherapeutic strategies applied to various pathological conditions, including gut inflammatory diseases. They recently identified a novel microbiota-induced Treg subset, associated with good prognosis in IBD patients, thus representing a promising candidate for innovative immunotherapeutic approaches. Based on the limitation to develop immunotherapy approach for human diseases by using animal models due to immune system specificities/differences and ethical considerations, we opted for the development of an ex vivo human preclinical model that will reconstitute the physiological complexity of the human gut. Teams from Strasbourg have a strong experience and already set-up models of organoids in different pathological systems, that will perfectly fit to be used as ex vivo preclinical models for this project. This proposal aims thus at providing a pre-clinical package including i) the proof of concept that a cellular immunotherapy using the identified Tregs subset represents a treatment for IBDs and ii) the reglementary pre-clinical in vitro and in vivo toxicity.

Compared to the pace of innovation in electronic consumer products, the pace of innovation for medical devices is lagging behind. It is the overarching objective of Moore4Medical to accelerate innovation in electronic medical devices. Moore4Medical emerging medical applications that offer significant new opportunities for the ECS industry including: active implantable devices (bioelectronic medicines), organ-on-chip, drug adherence monitoring, smart ultrasound, radiation free interventions and continuous monitoring. The new technologies will help fighting the increasing cost of healthcare by: reducing the need for hospitalization, helping the development of personalized therapies, and realizing intelligent point-of-care diagnostic tools. Moore4Medical will bring together 68 specialists from 12 countries who will develop open technology platforms for these emerging fields to help them bridge “the Valley of Death” in shorter time and at lower cost. Open technology platforms used by multiple users for multiple applications with the prospect of medium to high volume markets are an attractive proposition for the European ECS industry. The combination of typical MedTech applications with an ECS style platform approach will enhance the competitiveness for the emerging medical domains addressed in Moore4Medical. With value and IP moving from the technology level towards applications and solutions, defragmentation and open technology platforms will be key in acquiring and maintaining a premier position for Europe in the forefront of affordable healthcare

Microfluidic devices manipulate tiny amounts of fluid enabling cost-effective, fast, accurate and high throughput analytical assays. Progress in Microfluidics has huge impact in environmental pollution monitoring, biohazard detection and biomedicine, contributing to the development of new tools for drug screening, biological studies, point-of-care diagnostics and personalized medicine. Despite this huge potential, Microfluidics market growth is heavily constrained by the complexity and high prices of the required large-scale off-chip equipment and its operational cost. PRIME will use recently introduced 4D printing of liquid crystal elastomers for the direct implementation and integration of light-actuated valves and pumps in a microfluidic chip. Inkjet printing will produce new ultra sensitive and selective sensors embedded in the chip and readable with light. The final device will be remotely addressed and read using simple photonic elements that can be integrated in compact, portable and cheap operation&read devices. PRIME goes beyond the state-of-the-art generating a robust platform to create a new generation of active, tubeless and contactless microfluidic chips effectively changing the currently established paradigm. PRIME will develop a radically new platform that: i) integrates all the required responsive materials and elements in the chip, effectively providing it with all the fluidic and sensing functions, ii) uses compatible materials and manufacturing technologies making future industrial production viable and cost-effective, iii) allows to implement with extensive freedom of design a plethora of new smart-integrated and easy-to-operate microfluidic chips. PRIME will thus narrow the gap between Microfluidics and non-specialized laboratories and end-users enabling the spread and penetration of the technology in diverse application fields as well as its geographical expansion to areas where large equipment is difficult to transport or resources are scarce.

The launch of a novel drug to the market is preceded by clinical testing and validation both on animal in vitro and in vivo models. Animal models used in drug development have known methodological drawbacks leading to the failure of drugs. Further, animal tests are associated with ethical issues. Moreover, a strong bias in in-human testing still overlooks major population groups e.g. children, women, different ethical groups. It is estimated that 197,000 deaths per year in the EU are caused by Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) and the total cost to society of ADRs is €79 billion. The emerging Organ-on-Chip (OOC) field, an alternative to animal test, brings great potential for safe testing and validation: An OOC-systems consists of a 3D-microstructured channel network embedded on a small plastic device that simulates the mechanics and physiological response of an entire organ or organs. Project UNLOOC will develop, optimize, and validate a multitude of ECS-based tools to build OOC-models to replace animal and in-human testing. UNLOOC aims to combine three important characteristics for routine use of OOC models, i.e platforms that combine ECS-based technologies with established biological material, capitalize on AI, parallelized test set-ups allowing efficient high-throughput demands, and standardized procedures enabling reliable results. UNLOOC will develop ECS-based hardware and software tools and validate them in five Use Cases (UCs) performed in 10 European countries. The applications developed and validated will be used by academia and pharma industry to drive drug development, create cosmetics without animal test, personalized medicine and gain new insights into disease. Given the large OOC market, these solutions have great economic value, on average it would result in cost reduction of up to $169M and $706M per new drug reaching the market and will put Europe at the forefront of this booming research field (see impact section for details).