# Pancreas-on-a-chip: An in-silico study

Raafat Hussein, Badr Kaoui

► To cite this version:

Raafat Hussein, Badr Kaoui. Pancreas-on-a-chip: An in-silico study. Annual EUROoCS conference on Organ-on-Chip, European Organ-on-Chip Society, Jul 2022, Grenoble, France. hal-05357959

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Submitted on 10 Nov 2025

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# Pancreas-on-a-chip: An in-silico study

Raafat Hussein, Badr Kaoui*

BMBI, CNRS - Université de Technologie de Compiègne, 60200
Compiègne, France

*E-mail: badr.kaoui@utc.fr

## Introduction

Many biomedical systems exploit transport phenomena to perform functions similar to those of biological organs. An artificial pancreas, as an organ-on-chip, is designed to perform functions similar to a healthy pancreas by regulating insulin secretion in response to the stimulation of a glucose spike. The pancreas-on-a-chip (PoC) consists of multiple islets of Langerhans enclosed in microwells and surrounded by a fluid flow that provides necessary nutrients and oxygen as it removes metabolic waste and hormones. Mass transfer between the surrounding perfusion fluid and the cells takes place at the level of the islet spheroids surface. However, the efficiency of such artificial organs is limited unless the metabolic exchange and flow around the spheroids are well controlled and optimized. Previous studies have been limited to measuring global physical quantities at the macroscopic scale to quantify the performance of the artificial organ, at the inlet and outlet of the bioreactor. The present work aims to numerically investigate the effects of local flow shear rate on mass transfer and biochemical signaling stimulation of pancreatic islet spheroids clustered by multiple beta cells.

## Methods

We use an in-house fully three-dimensional and parallelized computer code based on the lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) to compute the flow and mass transfer of insulin and glucose in complex geometries, the spring model to calculate particle mechanics, and the Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) to compute the two-way fluid-structure interaction [1]. We have successfully implemented the mechanistic models of insulin release previously developed by Legallais *et al.* for the static case when the particle is stationary [2], (Figures 1A and 1B). We have also performed computer simulations to study the optimization of biochemical processes at the surface of pancreatic islet spheroids under different flow configurations, (Figure 1C).

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>**Figure 1** A – The structure of a pancreatic islet spheroid in a quiescent fluid, B – Modeling the insulin secretion response to a positive ramp glucose stimulation, C – Computer simulation of an islet spheroid performance in a microchip.</figcaption></figure>

## Results and Discussion

The obtained numerical results are compared with experimental data of Leclerc *et al.* who study experimentally the performance of a PoC [3]. This allows us to bridge the microscopic and macroscopic scales, and figure out the contribution of the flow rate in improving the performance of PoC. We report for the first time how flow reshapes the concentration boundary layer at the surface of pancreatic islet spheroids, (Figure 1C). In contrast to a recent study [4], our simulations consider freely suspended spheroids with two-way fluid-structure interaction.

## Conclusion

This in-silico study will help to design future optimized pancreas-on-a-chip.

## References

[1] C. Bielinski, L. Xia, G. Helbecque, B. Kaoui, *Physics of Fluids* **34**, 031902 (2022)

[2] J-L. Dulong, C. Legallais, *Transactions of the ASME* **127**, 1054 (2005)

[3] A. Essaouiba *et al.*, *Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology* **514**, 110892 (2020)

[4] Jun *et al.*, *Science Advances* **5**, eaax4520 (2019)