Construction of Microphysiological System by Integration of Cells and Microdevices

In recent years, many researchers have proposed biohybrid systems that integrate biological materials, especially cells or cultured tissues formed by in vitro cell culture, and microdevices to utilize the functions of cultured cellular tissues in an engineering way. In this paper, we focus on microphysiological systems composed of microfluidic channels or microdevices and cells or cultured tissues and introduce the functional characteristics of these microphysiological systems. In the microphysiological system, we can adjust cell culture conditions under mechanical stress control and bring out the dynamic performance of the cultured tissue. The systems can be applied not only to drug development to replace laboratory animals, but also to the development of advanced robots with cellular functions. Therefore, we believe that the biohybrid systems are a promising technology to apply cells and cultured tissues in various fields.