器官芯片是使用人类细胞来模拟特定组织或器官的结构、功能和行为的三维微型设备。通过将有机体与微加工流体通道和微电子结合在一起，这些系统为研究疾病机制、药物反应和组织性能提供了一个有前途的平台。通过复制体内微环境，这些设备可以在受控条件下重新创建复杂的细胞相互作用，并促进包括药物毒性和疗效研究、生化分析和疾病发病机制在内的各个领域的研究。整合人类诱导多能干细胞进一步增强了它们的适用性，从而实现了个体化疾病模型用于精准医学。尽管存在着规模经济、多芯片整合和合规性等挑战，但这种模块化技术的进展显示出降低药物开发成本、提高重复性和减少对动物试验的依赖的希望。关于器官芯片使用的道德领域既具有益处又带来了担忧。虽然这些芯片提供了一种对动物试验的替代方案和潜在的成本节省，但它们也引发了与社区参与、知情同意和标准化指南相关的伦理考虑。确保公众接受和参与决策是解决误解和不信任的关键。此外，使用病人来源的细胞进行个体化医学模型还需要仔细考虑潜在的伦理困境，例如对胎儿或大脑的生理功能建模以及确定对这些模型的保护程度。为了实现器官芯片模型的全部潜力，科学家、伦理学家和监管机构之间的合作至关重要，以实现转变药物开发、推进个体化医学，并为道德和高效的生物医学研究领域做出贡献。2023年发表。本文是美国政府的工作成果，在美国属于公共领域。

Organ-on-chips are three-dimensional microdevices that emulate the structure, functionality, and behavior of specific tissues or organs using human cells. Combining organoids with microfabricated fluidic channels and microelectronics, these systems offer a promising platform for studying disease mechanisms, drug responses, and tissue performance. By replicating the in vivo microenvironment, these devices can recreate complex cell interactions in controlled conditions and facilitate research in various fields, including drug toxicity and efficacy studies, biochemical analysis, and disease pathogenesis. Integrating human induced pluripotent stem cells further enhances their applicability, thereby enabling patient-specific disease modeling for precision medicine. Although challenges like economy-of-scale, multichip integration, and regulatory compliance exist, advances in this modular technology show promise for lowering drug development costs, improving reproducibility, and reducing the reliance on animal testing. The ethical landscape surrounding organ-on-chip usage presents both benefits and concerns. While these chips offer an alternative to animal testing and potential cost savings, they raise ethical considerations related to community engagement, informed consent, and the need for standardized guidelines. Ensuring public acceptance and involvement in decision-making is vital to address misinformation and mistrust. Furthermore, personalized medicine models using patient-derived cells demand careful consideration of potential ethical dilemmas, such as modeling physiological functions of fetuses or brains and determining the extent of protection for these models. To achieve the full potential of organ-on-a-chip models, collaboration between scientists, ethicists, and regulators is essential to fulfil the promise of transforming drug development, advancing personalized medicine, and contributing to a more ethical and efficient biomedical research landscape.Published 2023. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.