Methods of Delivering Mechanical Stimuli to Organ-on-a-Chip

This review surveys how mechanical cues are generated and integrated into organ-on-a-chip (OOC) platforms to better recapitulate in vivo-like microenvironments for experimental medicine, disease modelling, drug development, and toxicology. The authors organize the literature around three primary classes of mechanical stimuli used in OOCs—(i) flow-induced shear (laminar, pulsatile, interstitial), (ii) compression, and (iii) stretch/strain—and then summarize the engineering strategies and hardware used to deliver each stimulus (e.g., external syringe/peristaltic pumps, integrated on-chip pumps, passive gravity-driven rocking/perfusion, pressure regulators/controllers, pistons/diaphragms, and vacuum-driven membrane stretching). The review also highlights the need for next-generation OOCs that can deliver multiple mechanical stimuli simultaneously (e.g., combined shear + cyclic strain) to improve physiological fidelity, and discusses considerations for real-time imaging and monitoring of rapid mechanobiological responses.