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Figure 2 | Stem Cell Research & Therapy

Figure 2

From: Neurovascular unit on a chip: implications for translational applications

Figure 2

Benefit of translating various components of the neurovascular unit on a chip to pharmaceutical industry/clinic. The initial work represents largely uncoupled biological development (green shading) of well-plate triculture of endothelial cells, pericytes, and astrocytes and technological development (blue) of microfluidic micropumps and microvalves. Later, these technologies enable hollow fiber (HF) multiculture bioreactors that also include neurons and microglia. The integrated organ microfluidics technologies support studies with platforms containing relevant cell populations. Each of these four components has immediate translational potential to science, industry, and national security. Ultimately, the biology and technology are totally merged to create a fully instrumented neurovascular unit (NVU) suitable for translation to industry and medicine. The near-term and ultimate biological and technological returns from the development of a fully instrumented human NVU on a chip should improve our understanding of the physiology of the blood-brain interactions and the development and assessment of the safety and toxicity of both new central nervous system (CNS) drugs and systemic drugs that might affect the CNS. As a result, the approach outlined here could contribute to the diagnosis, treatment, and even prevention of traumatic brain injury, obesity, aging and neurodevelopmental abnormalities, cancer, stroke, epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, neurotropic viruses and parasites, and drug addiction. A low-cost NVU model could be useful in studies of brain tissue regeneration, drug interference toxicity screening, personalized medicine, neural regenerative medicine, and brain-tissue stem-cell technologies.

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