Wyss Institute Models a Human Disease in an Organ-on-a-Chip

Engineers are developing "organs-on-a-chip", microchips lined with living cells that mimic the structure and biochemical behaviour of a human organ, making drug screening much easier. The image below belongs to one of the first "lungs-on-a-

chip" and it is roughly the size of a memory stick. This technology could also put an end to animal experimentation.

Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University have mimicked pulmonary edema in a microchip lined by living human cells, as reported today in the journal Science Translation Medicine. They used this "lung-on-a-chip" to study drug toxicity and identify potential new therapies to prevent this life-threatening condition.

The study offers further proof-of-concept that human "organs-on-chips" hold tremendous potential to replace traditional approaches to drug discovery and development.

"Major pharmaceutical companies spend a lot of time and a huge amount of money on cell cultures and animal testing to develop new drugs," says Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., founding director of the Wyss Institute and senior author of the study, "but these methods often fail to predict the effects of these agents when they reach humans."