Accurate in vitro intestinal models are essential for reliable drug screening, disease research, and microbiome studies, yet current platforms rely on static cultures or bulky pumps that fail to reproduce the cyclic tensile and compressive strains of peristalsis. This physiological mismatch contributes to poor predictivity of gastrointestinal absorption and tissue responses, prolonging development timelines and increasing costs for biopharma and CRO partners.
Our Smart Polymer–Controlled Gut-on-chip design embeds low-voltage Ionic Polymer–Metal Composites (IPMC) within a transparent polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microchannel to deliver programmable, bidirectional wall deformations without external pumping. Unlike pneumatic or syringe-pump approaches, our device offers precise control over frequency (0.2–1 Hz), amplitude (up to 15% strain), and waveform, all in a compact, modular format amenable to multi-intestine-on-a-chip structure. In proof-of-concept studies, we achieved cyclic channel wall deformation with around 10% strain at 0.2 Hz, which has been shown to drive the growth of well-defined epithelial monolayers seven times quicker than Transwell static systems and enable live visualization of microbial flow dynamics. This cost-effective, scalable technology can bridge the gap between bench and bedside, offering pharmaceutical developers and academic labs a next-generation tool for mechanobiology, disease modeling, and personalized therapeutics.
Image Description: a) Micro-channel Gut-on-chip prototype design. b) Computational simulation of the cyclic forces applied by IPMC strips on the channel walls.