Engineering and Validation of Organoid and Organ-on-Chip Platforms for Metabolic and Gastrointestinal Disease

Bioengineered organoid and organ-on-chip technologies are becoming increasingly important for modelling metabolic and gastrointestinal disease in physiologically relevant human in vitro systems. Organoids can reproduce key aspects of tissue architecture, cellular heterogeneity, and function that are difficult to capture in conventional two-dimensional culture, while organ-on-chip and related microphysiological systems add controlled perfusion, mechanical stimulation, spatial organisation, and tissue–tissue communication. Advances in biomaterials, biofabrication, and microfluidics are enabling greater control over the cellular microenvironment and improving the relevance of these platforms for translational research. Together, these systems offer new opportunities to investigate barrier function, nutrient handling, epithelial transport, gut–liver and gut–pancreas interactions, and responses to pharmacological or nutritional intervention. However, many current models remain limited by variable performance, incomplete maturation, and insufficient benchmarking for disease-relevant use.This Research Topic aims to bring together high-quality contributions on the biofabrication, engineering, and validation of organoid and organ-on-chip platforms for metabolic and gastrointestinal disease modelling and screening. We welcome studies that develop or improve bioengineered in vitro systems, including gut, liver, pancreas, intestinal epithelium, gut–liver axis, microbiome-interfacing, and other multi-tissue models, that reproduce dynamic physiology and disease-relevant phenotypes under well-controlled conditions.Particular emphasis will be placed on work that combines clear engineering innovation with quantitative biological and technical validation. Relevant advances may include microfluidic device design, biomaterials and extracellular matrix engineering, perfusion strategies, mechanical conditioning, tissue–tissue interfaces, integrated sensing, imaging-compatible platforms, automation, and scalable biofabrication. Submissions should demonstrate meaningful performance metrics, such as barrier integrity, transport, secretion, metabolic activity, tissue stability, reproducibility across batches or devices, and suitability for pharmacology, toxicology, or nutrition-related testing. We also strongly encourage studies addressing standardisation, benchmarking, qualification, and inter-laboratory comparability to support broader adoption of these technologies in translational bioengineering.This Research Topic welcomes original research, methods, technology reports, and focused reviews on bioengineered organoid and organ-on-chip systems for metabolic and gastrointestinal applications. In-scope areas include engineered gut, liver, pancreas, and gut–liver axis models; perfused and microfluidic culture systems; epithelial barrier and transport models; host–microbiome co-culture; endocrine–metabolic interaction models; and other microphysiological systems designed for mechanistic study or screening. Relevant enabling technologies include microfluidics, hydrogels and biomaterials, synthetic extracellular matrix design, bioprinting and biofabrication, integrated sensors, TEER and barrier monitoring, imaging and analysis workflows, automation, and standardised culture hardware. Submissions must show a clear connection between platform engineering and functional validation. Out of scope are purely descriptive studies, standard organoid culture without a substantive engineering advance, clinical studies, epidemiology, bibliometrics, omics-only studies, and computational-only or AI-only studies without direct experimental platform innovation or validation. Topic editors: David Caballero, Joaquim Miguel Oliveira Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/79286/engineering-and-validation-of-organoid-and-organ-on-chip-platforms-for-metabolic-and-gastrointestinal-disease