Promotie
Human gut-on-chip as an intestinal model to predict compound absorption and toxicity
With her thesis, Phim has contributed to the development of an animal-free approach to test compounds and materials for their effect on and transport across the human intestinal wall. More specifically, she developed a gut-on-a chip (mini gut) system in which intestinal cells are cultured under a liquid flow and extensively characterized the system by studying the morphology and gene expression profiles of the cells. Phim also assessed the value of this model by examining the transport of several dioxins and well-known pharmaceuticals as well as the effect of two food-related nanomaterials (zinc oxide and titanium dioxide) on gene expression.