Kompendium 2020 Forschung & Klinik

3D Biochips for Research on
Inflammatory Musculoskeletal
Diseases
TOP-Studien
43
In 2020, a cooperative project of researchers of the „Karl Chiari Lab
for Orthopaedic Biology“, co-coordinated with the „Division of
Rheumatology“, and the CellChipGroup at the Vienna University
of Technology developed a lab-on-a-chip system for analysis
of tissue-level remodeling in arthritic synovium, resulting in
the article entitled „Monitoring Tissue-Level Remodeling during
Inflammatory Arthritis Using a Three-dimensional Synoviumon-a-Chip
with Non-invasive Light Scattering Biosensing“ in RSC
Lab on a Chip (IF: 6.774). The work is a result of years of interdisciplinary
research at the interface of basic biological research
and bioengineering.
Study:
Rothbauer M, Höll G, Eilenberger
C, Kratz SRA, Farooq
B, Schuller P, Olmos Calvo I,
Byrne RA, Meyer B, Niederreiter
B, Küpcü S, Sevelda F,
Holinka J, Hayden O, Tedde
SF, Kiener HP, Ertl P. Monitoring
tissue-level remodelling
during inflammatory arthritis
using a three-dimensional
synovium-on-a-chip with
non-invasive light scattering
biosensing. Lab Chip. 2020
Apr 21;20(8):1461-1471. doi:
10.1039/c9lc01097a
Since 2019, the study of musculoskeletal tissues in microfluidic biochips is
a new additional research focus of tissue engineer Dr. Mario Rothbauer at
the „Karl Chiari Lab for Orthopedic Biology“ (KCLOB) of the Department of
Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery. The biochip team wants to use organotypic
tissue-like microsystems as three-dimensional disease models of the human
joint to recapitulate onset and progression of degradative and inflammatory
processes in arthritic diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and
osteoarthritis (OA), ranging from molecular pathways up to cellular and
tissue-level architecture and communication.
A systematic in vitro investigation of disease factors and co-factors that
mediate arthritic diseases, using three-dimensional human organotypic
biochips, may be key in identifying basic biological processes that govern
the onset and progression of musculoskeletal diseases. As active member
of the European Society for Alternatives to Animal Experiments (EUSAAT),
Dr. Rothbauer aims at a patient-derived approach for his team’s basic and
applied research, focusing on complimentary or even alternative methods to
animal experiments that include, i.e., the well-established collagen-induced
or collagen-antibody-induced rodent models (CIA/CAIA). The challenging
project idea to establish an animal-product-free synovial organoid biochip
platform for drug screening was awarded in 2019 with the Herbert Stiller
Prize of the Doctors Against Animal Experiments Association. 1
For several years, Dr. Rothbauer has focused on the development of microphysiological
sensor-integrated microsystems (i.e., microvasculature, blood brain
barrier, placenta) 2-4 , with special attention on synovium as inflammatory tissue