Review of microfluidics approaches to mimic the kidney

Abstract

The use of microfluidics and nanotechnology in bioscience is gaining favor among the next generation of bioscience and clinical researchers, and this field has expanded to include organ-specific applications and modeling. While certain organ-specific microfluidic chips/applications, such as those in the heart and liver, are ubiquitous in the peer-reviewed literature, the kidneys require more focus and attention to drive innovation. This review is a comprehensive overview of kidney microfluidic bio-applications and includes the current challenges and limitations that should be the focus of research efforts. More specifically, previous research efforts focused on glomerular or tubule segments of the kidney, but never both anatomical regions. This is due, in part, to the complexity of reconstituting the kidney complete with all its variable mechanical and biochemical functions.