Organ-on-chip platforms poised to accelerate nanoparticle drug development

Nanoparticle-based drug delivery is reshaping medicine due to its improved drug release, lessened toxicity, and better targeting. However, evaluating the efficacy and safety of nanomedicines is hamstrung by complexities inherent to human physiology, which are hard to capture with traditional experimental models.

Fortuitously, organ-on-chip (OoC) technologies are simultaneously rapidly evolving. OoCs use microfluidic channels of human cells to recreate physiologically relevant microenvironments, which allow for better studies of nano-biointerface dynamics. To facilitate the next generation of nanoparticle drug design, Akar et al. present a combined review of nanomedicine and OoC technologies.

“We hope this review will serve not only as a comprehensive introduction for researchers entering the field but also as a roadmap for scientists developing the next generation of targeted drug delivery systems,” said author Ali Koşar. “By bringing together concepts that are often discussed independently, we aim to encourage closer collaboration among engineers, materials scientists, biologists, pharmacologists, and clinicians.”

The paper provides an overview of nanoparticle platform design principles, OoC stimuli-responsive and adaptive delivery strategies. It also presents organ-specific OoC models and related emerging technologies. As OoC and nanomedicine technologies have largely evolved independently, the paper provides a bridge to understanding both areas concurrently.

“We believe that successful drug delivery requires more than designing increasingly sophisticated nanoparticles. It also demands a deeper understanding of the interactions of those nanoparticles with dynamic human microphysiology,” Koşar said. “We envision the next generation of OoC platforms as intelligent, data-driven systems that, rather than serving solely as experimental tools, have the potential to become predictive design environments that guide the development of safer and more effective nanomedicines.”

Source: “From nanoengineering to microphysiology: Organ-on-chip platforms for next-generation drug delivery,” by Ünal Akar, Ezgi Kestek, İlayda Çelik, Gül Kozalak, and Ali Koşar, Biophysics Reviews (2026). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0332911 .