We are OoCCT

At the University of Twente, we develop Organs-on-Chips to investigate the safety of health products and to understand the mechanisms of health and disease. We believe Organs-on-Chips will find widespread use in biomedical science and will progressively reduce the need for animal models as the mainstay in efficacy and toxicity testing.

The Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente

The OoCCT started in 2020 as one of the Centres of Expertise from University of Twente's MESA+ Institute. As Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente we are connected to the Dutch Organ-on-Chip consortium “human Organ and Disease Model Technologies” (hDMT) and actively involved in the Netherlands Organ-on-Chip Initiative (NOCI) and SMART OoC consortium. This makes us an important Dutch Organ-on-Chip partner. In addition, the OoCCT was involved in founding the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS) to bring together Organ-on-Chip researchers internationally.

OUR EXPERTISE

OoCCT brings together researchers interested in Organ-on-Chip to share their knowledge. The affiliated scientists, across all faculties, are encouraged to share their vision on the topic of Organs-on-Chips, discuss the latest developments in the field, explore practical collaborations and participate in writing research proposals. Equally important, OoCCT provides services to researchers and companies outside of the University of Twente and give them access to the technology developed here in order to accelerate innovation and real-world application of Organs-on-Chips.

Researchers at the University of Twente are international leaders in key technological fields for Organ-on-Chip development, such as materials science, biofabrication, sensing, imaging, stem cell technology and tissue engineering. As a result, we play a leading role worldwide in the development of innovative Organs-on-Chips. By working with our strong network of biomedical, clinical and industrial partners, we apply our Organs-on-Chips in the development of personalized treatments for patients in many disease areas.

Our scientific leads

Prof. Dr. A.D. van der Meer (Andries)

Full Professor

Dr. Andries van der Meer leads the research theme ‘Organs-on-Chips’ in the Applied Stem Cell Technologies group as tenure track adjunct professor and scientific lead op the Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente at the University of Twente. He supervises multiple PhD candidates and coordinates various research projects in the domain of organ-on-chip technology. He works on retina-on-chip, vessel-on-chip and heart-on-chip disease models, but he is best known for his leadership role towards standardisation and harmonisation of Organ-on-Chip platforms, leading to the development of the ‘Translational Organ-on-Chip Platform (TOP)’ to counter the lack of interoperability in microfluidic platforms. He is theme group chair within hDMT and chair of the international society EUROoCS (2023-2025).

Dr. L.S. Moreira Teixeira Leijten (Liliana)

Assistant Professor

Dr. Liliana Moreira Teixeira is tenure track assistant professor at the Department of Advanced Organ bioengineering and Therapeutics group at the University of Twente. Her group on Targeted Microphysiological Systems focuses on the development of human multi-organ microphysiological systems (organ-on-a-chip technology) to investigate the role of organ communication, mechanobiology and inflammation in disease processes. Dr. Liliana Moreira Teixeira is also board member of the European Organ-on-Chip Society (EUROoCS) and co-coordinator of the bone-on-chip group of human Organ and Disease Model Technologies (hDMT).

Our strategic core team

We have several PIs throughout the University of Twente acting as our strategic core team. They are working on specific organs-on-chip, organ disease models, or are experts on key enabling technologies essential for organ-on-chip research and development.

The members in our core team working on a organ-on-chip research topic are:

Kerensa Broersen working on the Gut-Brain Axis-on-Chip
Séverine Le Gac working on the Cancer-on-Chip
Andries van der Meer working on the Eye-on-Chip
Liliana Moreira Teixeira working on the Bone/Osteochondral Unit-on-Chip
Robert Passier working on the Heart-on-Chip

The members in our core team working on organ-on-chip adjacent key enabling technologies are:

Jeroen Leijten working on Biofabrication
Mathieu Odijk working on Microfluidics
Loes Segerink working on Biosensing
Ivo Vellekoop working on Imaging

Our members

We proudly present all members of the Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente. Find here all scientific staff, researchers, PhD candidates and support staff working on various aspects of Organs-on-Chips at the University of Twente.

We have many specialists working on all area's for organ-on-chip development. Are you a University of Twente researcher and would you like to be listed here? Please send an email to the Organ-on-Chip Centre Twente at oocct@utwente.nl, listing your name and area of expertise.