Ten miniature models of various human organs have been connected together to create the closest we鈥檝e come yet to a human-on-a-chip. The system survived for four weeks, and allowed scientists to test the effects of a common painkiller on multiple organs. Such systems could eventually do away with animal testing, says at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the work.
快猫短视频s around the world have been developing organs-on-chips. These typically comprise a 3D structure that contains multiple types of cells from a particular organ, and they are kept alive with a continuous flow of a nutrient-rich fluid. This makes them more representative of human organs in the body than cells in a tube or animal models, says Griffith.
In 2011, Griffith and her colleagues were awarded a $37 million grant by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to connect 10 such organs together to better mimic the human body. 鈥淚 thought it was super-ambitious, but we ultimately did it,鈥� says Griffith.
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The team began by connecting their models of the lung, gut, and endometrium to a liver chip. Once they had got this working, they added other organs-on-chips 鈥� brain, heart, pancreas, kidney, skin and muscle.
Minimal human
All of the tissue in the organs on chips survived for the four weeks they were tested, says Griffith. The organs-on-chips also showed signs of acting like true human organs, producing similar proteins. When the team applied a common painkiller called diclofenac to the gut chip, they found that other chips seemed to respond similarly to human organs.
Next, the team hopes to incorporate a chip that represents fat, which plays an important role in processing drugs. 鈥淲e鈥檙e a long way from having a true human-on-a-chip,鈥� says Griffith. 鈥淭his is still only a minimal representation of a human.鈥�
Griffith and her colleagues are now working on ways to add bacteria to their gut chip, to better understand the role of the microbiome. They hope to connect this chip to brain and immune system chips, to study Parkinson鈥檚 disease.
She also wants to create miniature models of endometriosis, which is difficult to study in lab animals, and to create a cervix-on-a-chip, for investigating infections like bacterial vaginosis.
Journal reference: Scientific reports
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