Bioengineering of the liver

The liver is an extremely complicated organ regulating the crucial metabolic processes and immune homeostasis in the human body. It performs various functions, such as carbohydrate, lipid, and amino acid metabolism, ammonia clearance, urea synthesis, albumin and bile acid synthesis, xenobiotic metabolism, and inflammatory response.1 Various pathogenic factors, including alcohol abuse, viral infection, and autoimmune or metabolic disorders, promote functional disorders of the liver, inducing acute or chronic inflammation, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and even tumorigenesis. Meanwhile, the liver is located in a complicated mechanical or physical microenvironment that is critical for maintaining physiological homeostasis, possessing mechanotransductive responses of various hepatic cells.2 Emerging bioengineering technologies enable efficient assessment and tests of liver physiopathology, covering the fields of microfluidics, biomaterials, tissue engineering and bioprinting, gene screening and genotyping, biomechanics and mechanobiology, and others.3,4 The latest advances addressed include organ-on-chips, organoids, gene sequencing, drug release profiling, and cytotoxicity screening, providing an overview from basic research to translation into practice and describing the most exciting challenges and opportunities that multidisciplinary approaches can provide to the field.