Organs-on-chips (OoCs), also known as microphysiological systems or ‘tissue chips’ (the terms are synonymous), have attracted substantial interest in recent years owing to their potential to be informative at multiple stages of the drug discovery and development process. These innovative devices could provide insights into normal human organ function and disease pathophysiology, as well as more accurately predict the safety and efficacy of investigational drugs in humans. Therefore, they are likely to become useful additions to traditional preclinical cell culture methods and in vivo animal studies in the near term, and in some cases replacements for them in the longer term. In the past decade, the OoC field has seen dramatic advances in the sophistication of biology and engineering, in the demonstration of physiological relevance and in the range of applications. These advances have also revealed new challenges and opportunities, and expertise from multiple biomedical and engineering fields will be needed to fully realize the promise of OoCs for fundamental and translational applications. This Review provides a snapshot of this fast-evolving technology, discusses current applications and caveats for their implementation, and offers suggestions for directions in the next decade.

器官芯片 (OoC)，也称为微生理系统或“组织芯片”（这些术语是同义词），近年来引起了极大的兴趣，因为它们有可能在药物发现和开发过程的多个阶段提供信息. 这些创新设备可以提供对正常人体器官功能和疾病病理生理学的洞察，以及更准确地预测研究药物在人体中的安全性和有效性。因此，它们很可能在短期内成为传统临床前细胞培养方法和体内动物研究的有用补充，并在某些情况下在长期内替代它们。在过去的十年中，OoC 领域在生物学和工程的复杂性方面取得了巨大的进步，在生理相关性和应用范围的证明中。这些进步也揭示了新的挑战和机遇，需要来自多个生物医学和工程领域的专业知识才能完全实现 OoC 在基础和转化应用中的承诺。本评论简要介绍了这种快速发展的技术，讨论了当前的应用及其实施的注意事项，并就未来十年的发展方向提供了建议。