Gut on-chip for Screening of Ingestible Biomaterials Using In-situ Sensing

Preclinical testing of medical devices is a primary reason for the increased cost and development time associated with these products. Organ-on-chip technology, whereby microfluidic devices mimic human physiology, has shown promise in reducing costs, increasing throughput, and improving reproducibility for drug development. However, there has been little done to adapt this technology for assessing the safety and compatibility of medical devices or their constituent materials. This project will modify a gut-on-chip model, which mimics the gastrointestinal tract, to enable rapid screening of materials for their use in an ingestible medical device. The gut-on-chip will be modified to allow insertion of material samples without disturbing the in vitro environment along with the integration of custom electrochemical and other sensors in collaboration with the industrial partner (Zimmer Peacock) to enable the automated capture of data regarding the material-tissue interactions. Finally, the system would be validated against established methods to determine biocompatibility. The student will get practical training in several techniques such as microengineering, biomaterial science, analytical and cell culture techniques. The student will be based in the School of Engineering of the University of Birmingham but will collaborate with partners in the School of Chemical Engineering and will be seconded to Zimmer Peacock.

This PhD project is part of CDT in Engineered Tissues for Discovery, Industry and Medicine, a partnership between the University of Glasgow, University of Birmingham, Aston University and National University of Ireland Galway. The CDT will train the next generation of interdisciplinary (engineering, chemistry, physics, maths and biology) leaders in developing in vitro tissues, sensing and diagnostics to develop humanised in vitro systems to drive better drug screening.

For more information about the benefits of the programme, funding, eligibility and EDI support please refer to our main CDT advert.