**Cells and Organs on Chip—A Revolutionary Platform for Biomedicine**

Preeti Nigam Joshi

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/64102

#### **Abstract**

Lab‐on‐a‐chip (LOC) and microfluidics are important technologies with numerous applications from drug delivery to tissue engineering. LOC integrates fluidic and electronic components on a single chip and becomes very attractive due to the possibility of their state‐of‐art implementation in personalized devices for the point‐of‐care treatments. Microfluidics is the technique that deals with small (10-9 to 10-18 L) amounts of fluids, using channels with dimensions of 10 to 100 μm. These LOC and microflui‐ dics devices enable the development of next‐generation portable and implantable bioelectronics devices. Superior chip‐based technologies are emerging with the advances in microfluidics and motivating various chip‐based methods for rapid low‐ cost analysis as compared to traditional laboratory method.An organ‐on‐chip (OOC) is on‐chip cell culture device created with microfabrication techniques and contains continuously perfused chambers inhabited by living cells that simulate tissue‐ and organ‐level physiology. *In vitro* models of cells, tissues and organ based on LOC devices are a major breakthrough for research in biologic systems and mechanisms. The recapitulations of cellular events in OOC devices provide them an edge over two‐ dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) cultures and open a gateway for their newer applications in biomedicine such as tissue engineering, drug discovery and disease modeling. In this chapter, the advancement and potential applications of OOC devices are discussed.

**Keywords:** lab‐on‐chip, MEMS, organ‐on‐chip, 3D cell culture, drug discovery
