Fig. 4.

Challenges to lung MPS and upcoming advances. a Small, typically lipophilic molecules bind to surfaces such as PDMS channel walls and can be characterized by the Langmuir–Freundlich isotherm. Coating a PDMS surface with paralyne or using sol–gel methods can prevent lipophilic binding [156, 157]. a1 Baricitinib, a Janus-associated kinase (JAK/STAT) inhibitor immunosuppressant, is used to treat COVID-associated hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH) [76]. a2 Fingolimod, a repurposed multiple sclerosis drug [89]. Aliphatic domains such as the hydrophobic tail create opportunities for the drug to bind to channel walls. a3 Budesonide, an anti-inflammatory steroid compared tested on lung MPS [90]. b Biologics such as antibodies and recombinant proteins adsorb to PDMS channel walls; methods to prevent adsorption include oxygen plasma treatment, amphilic, self-assembled monolayer and hydrophilic polymer graft coating [157, 161]. c Integrating MPS devices with automated liquid handling and continuous flow will introduce a new potential for streamlining drug discovery workflows and increasing throughput for screening lead compounds. d Machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms such as neural networks can aid drug discovery through molecular docking and design, image analysis and toxicity predictions. Effective usage includes generating and seeking out sufficiently large datasets to train algorithms to make accurate predictions