human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT)

Exploiting Organ-on-Chip models to improve health 

and combat disease

hDMT aims to develop and validate cell culture models of healthy and diseased human tissues based on Organ-on-Chip technology and facilitate valorisation, implementation and availability to end users and tailor to their needs. Furthermore hDMT strives towards better models of human organs to reduce animal experiments.

hDMT as the forum for Organ-on-Chip collaborations between public and private partners.

hDMT is a consortium of engineers, biologists, physicists, chemists, pharmacologists and physicians from Dutch research institutions, medical centers and biotechnology companies. All partners have a common interest in developing Organ-on-Chip models that capture human physiology, and establish new bioassays to monitor disease, drug responses and tissue toxicity. Many hDMT researchers integrate human stem cells into innovative microfluidic chips with sensitive readouts to predict the effects of different organs to detrimental or beneficial physical or chemical stimuli.     

hDMT is a precompetitive, non-profit R&D institute that functions as ‘a laboratory without walls’. A network of companies collaborates with hDMT partners in multidisciplinary independently funded projects. End users and developers consider Organ-on-Chip technology as holding great promise for healthcare and research by universities and pharmaceutical, cosmetic, chemical and food industries. All companies urgently need physiologically relevant human models for testing medicinal- and other compounds. By providing more relevant human models, animal testing is expected to be reduced.

hDMT’s ambition is that the models will ultimately be personalised for disease treatment or prevention. hDMT is leading in Europe, and founded the European Organ-on-Chip Society EUROoCS as one outcome of an EU-funded project, ORCHID, to establish an Organ-on-Chip Roadmap. EUROoCS facilitates implementation of this roadmap by bringing together relevant experts.