91Ö±²¥

91Ö±²¥ MIMIC

MIMIC - ''Mimicking organs-on-chips for high-throughput screening and basic research'' - is an interdisciplinary European Industrial Doctorate at the interface of cell biology, engineering and drug development.

There is a high demand by the pharmaceutical industry for more reliable tissue models to test drug toxicity and drug efficiency at early stages of drug development.

Early reliable drug testing will have a major impact on drug development costs and human health. Furthermore, ethical considerations drive the search for alternatives to replace animal tests in drug development and basic research.

Organs on chips are a new exciting possibility to more closely mimic human organ functionality in vitro than in conventional 2D or 3D cell cultures.

Organs on chips also allow both the emulation of healthy organs as well as the emulation of specific disease conditions using corresponding engineered or patient-derived human cells.

Moreover, organs on chips are ideally suited for high-throughput drug screening. The EID-MIMIC will develop novel organs on chips prototypes, and validate their suitability for end-users for high throughput drug screening or basic research.

Consequently, the specific scientific objectives of MIMIC are:

1. Genomic engineering of in vitro disease models suitable for organs on chips incorporation
2. Development and improvement of organs on chips models
3. Drug development and End-user suitability of organs on chips models.

MIMIC's collaborative innovative research program is an integral part of its training program and is further translated into seven state-of-the-art experimental doctoral training stations representing the combined expertise within the consortium.

MIMIC will train early-stage researchers in cutting edge technologies, like novel chip-based technologies eg cell micropatterning, soft-lithography and microfluidics technology, as well as state-of-the-art microscopy like super-resolution- and confocal spinning disc microscopy.

Furthermore, the cross-disciplinary training comprises most recent genome editing techniques like CRISPR-technology and state of the art protein/protein interaction assays.

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Contact

For all ITN-MIMIC queries, please contact:

Project co-ordinator:

Dr Kai Erdmann

Department of Biomedical Science
and the Centre for Membrane Interactions and Dynamics (CMIAD)
91Ö±²¥
Western Bank
91Ö±²¥ S10 2TN

Telephone: +44 114 222 4698
Email: k.erdmann@sheffield.ac.uk

Project manager:

Dr Agnieszka Skowronek

Department of Biomedical Science
91Ö±²¥
Western Bank
91Ö±²¥ S10 2TN

Telephone: +44 (0) 114 222 2364
e-mail: a.skowronek@sheffield.ac.uk