Next stop: screening-on-a-chip. Where biology meets scalability. Development of assays for placenta-on-a-chip models

In this thesis we showed the implementation of complex biology in a large scale setting. The project was focused on the development of assays to characterize and to test large number of compounds in complex biological models. The final goal of this project is to improve the drug development field, by acting on the way drugs are developed and by testing already developed drugs for their suitability to be taken during pregnancy as little is known about this topic. Therefore, we focused our investigation on the development of scalable assays to use with complex placenta models and on the application of these complex models and assays in a large-scale setting. This work shows the first application of on-a-chip in a range of thousands of compounds tested or chips used instead of the traditional range of hundreds or even less typical of on-a-chip models.