Microfluidic “Organ-on-Chip” Technology: The latest frontier in in vitro modeling is the lab-on-a-chip approach – microfluidic devices that culture cells in tiny channels with controlled flow, mimicking blood perfusion and peristaltic motions. These systems, often called “gut-on-chip”, aim to recreate key physical and mechanical aspects of the intestinal environment. In human biomedical research, gut-on-chip devices have successfully maintained intestinal epithelial cells co-cultured with microbes under dynamic flow, providing a more lifelike intestinal microenvironment . In the context of coccidiosis, organ-on-chip models are an exciting prospect to integrate multiple cell types (epithelium, immune, maybe muscle or endothelium) and even microbiota in one system, offering an in vitro proxy for the whole-organ response.

Current Status and Research: As of the last few years, microfluidic chips are just starting to be applied to parasitology. A 2023 review noted that “body-on-a-chip” systems have so far been used only for Toxoplasma gondii among coccidians. Those experiments involved a chip containing gut and liver compartments to study how T. gondii traverses the intestinal barrier and then reaches other organs. For avian Eimeria, no fully realized gut-on-chip model has been published yet, but conceptual frameworks are in place. Researchers have explicitly identified the “immense need to build a 3D intestinal-chip for initial ethical assessment of anticoccidials”, underlining that organ-on-chip could serve as a powerful pre-screening tool for new treatments.

In Europe, some technology firms and institutes are already expert in organ-on-chip development, and these are being leveraged for infectious disease modeling. An avian gut-on-chip could be developed wherein chicken intestinal cells (or organoids) are grown in a microfluidic chamber with controlled flow and chicken immune cells (macrophages, etc.) are incorporated. Such a system could simulate a more complete gut environment, including interactions with the vasculature (for example, allowing researchers to see if parasites trigger immune cell recruitment under flow) and with microbiota (by introducing commensal or pathogenic bacteria in a controlled manner).


To make this project a success, we are looking for expertise in the following areas:

- Academic Partners: Specialists in avian immunology and microbiology. Knowledge of organoids & organ-on-chip models

- Microfluidics/Bio-Engineering: Companies that can scale up the chip hardware.

- Bioinformatics: For analyzing the big data from the microbiome-on-a-chip experiments.

- Industrial End-users: Veterinary pharmaceutical companies that want to test their pipeline of new compounds.

oulpharm, founded in 2006, is a reliable, independent partner for veterinarians and the veterinary pharmaceutical and food industries. Poulpharm is specialized in offering high quality research activities, both on a diagnostic level and when performing (pre-)clinical studies in its own testing facilities. All activities are performed under strict procedures (ISO 17025, GCP, GLP,…).