Chinese distinguished professor Gu Zhongze leads “Human Organ-on-a-chip Industrialization”project in Suzhou

Editing by Greg Gao

Gu Zhongze (顾忠泽), a distinguished biology professor from China's Southeast University led a research team having launched “The Human Organ-on-a-chip (OOC) Industrialization Project” in Suzhou, eastern China's Jiangsu Province.

Credit: Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute

The research team involves three parties - Southeast University, Yangtze River Delta National Technology Innovation cooperation Center and Suzhou High-tech Zone Management Committee. They signed a cooperation agreement on the project in Suzhou High-tech Zone on January 12.

Gu Zhongze and his team have made a number of key technology breakthroughs in the areas of functional extracellular scaffold materials and three-dimensional imaging of tissue micro-organs after years of effort. It has successfully developed organ-on-a-chip for more than ten types of tissues and organs, including lung, heart, blood vessels, skin, and tumors, and achieved mass production, with a leading position in the country.

In the future, organ-on-a-chip products will be mainly used in new drug R&D, precision medicine, and detection; they are expected to effectively reduce the reliance on animals and clinical experiments for new drug R&D, improving the speed and reducing the cost of new drugs, according to Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute.

Gu Zhongze currently serves as the Dean of the School of Biological Science & Medical Engineering of Southeast University. He is also a Distinguished Professor of the Yangtze River Scholar Program. Gu graduated from Southeast University, Nanjing, in 1994 and the University of Tokyo in 1998 with a doctorate in applied chemistry, according to his Linkedin account.

In December 2021, the Gu’s team and the Suzhou High-tech Zone Management Committee, Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute jointly established Jiangsu Aiweide Biotechnology Co with a registered capital of RMB10 million($1.58 million), according to industry reports. The company is committed to commercializing the human organ-on-a-chip project, establishing patent barriers and international standard rules for the organ-on-a-chip industry.