Core Technologies

The brain is composed of several cell types interacting and connected together in specific yet complex circuits.
Brain-on-chip technologies should translate this complexity by:

  • Organizing both neural and non-neural cell types in specific architectures
  • Connecting cells at the molecular, cellular and network levels

  • Recording the functional activity of the entire network

NETRI has developed technologies to integrate multiple organs/organoids within the same chip, in which each biological function has been validated with industry standard hiPSC derived cells.

Engineering microfluidics neural architectures

Time to reproduce real brain circuits-on-chip

Our brain-on-chip devices integrate different technologies into the same chip:

  • 3D-Deposition Chambers: Cells are seeded and cultured into sized chambers in which density and homogeneity are controlled in a reproducible manner. Deposition chamber can accept from 1000 to 1 million dissociated cells, explants or organoids.
  • Microchannels: Chambers are connected by micrometer channels in which only neurites can grow in a uni- or bidirectional way. Chambers are fluidly isolated while maintaining axonal transport.
  • Membrane technology: Polystyrene porous membranes can be integrated in deposition chambers to create compartmentalized and connected barriers.

Our devices are designed for long term co-cultures (up to 3 months), thanks to our choice of materials composed of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polycarbonate (PC).

Our chips reproduce the physiological behavior of any organs. Multi organs interactions, such as gut-brain axis, can also be mimicked when integrating all our technologies within one chip.

Functional activity recording

Big data for organ-on-chip MEA

MEA (Micro Electrode Arrays) is a standard technology used to detect electrophysiological signals. Continuous recordings provide data to investigate a compound’s impact on functional activity and network dynamics.
All our chips are compatible with MEA/HDMEA devices from main suppliers. A compound can be applied on one node or more while recording the entire network functional activity.
Based on in vivo behaviors of neural circuits, we have developed algorithms to extract most of functional network markers (connectivity map between chambers, weight of connections, small worldness of the network). Those markers can characterize the recovering state of injured circuit.

NeuroBento™ for High Throughput assays

Get ready for Industrial organs-on-chip

All our standard and custom chips are set in a NeuroBento™ microplate format so that inlet and outlet reservoirs are aligned with 96-well microplate format. NeuroBento™ devices allow a complete automatization of the following processes:

  • Cell culture, with or without on liquid handling robots,
  • Imaging on microscopes and HTS plate readers (eg. Perkin Elmer operetta),
  • Electrophysiological recording on major MEA/HD MEA recorders ( eg. ePhys Multi Channel System, Axion)

NeuroBento™ microplates are stackable and can be placed directly in incubators without the use of any external equipment: no pump nor mechanical stirrer required.
Our patented industrial process allows to rapidly manufacture both prototypes and industrialized production of devices.