Engineered brain-on-a-chip to be implemented in a retina-brain axis model

Neurodegenerative diseases pose a major health challenge, requiring advanced models to investigate their mechanisms and potential therapies. The retina-brain axis offers a promising approach, as the retina - consider as a “window to the brain”- shares key features with the brain, including pathological inflammation, protein aggregation and glymphatic system involvement. To explore this connection and deepen our understanding of the retina as an alternative approach to studying the progression of neurodegenerative pathologies, we are developing a retina-brain-on-a-chip platform. Specifically, this work outlies our biological, computational and device design progress in creating a 3D-printed brain-on-a-chip device, based on Transwell technology, to be integrated in a retina-brain axis model.