Researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital have created a “living, breathing, human lung-on-a-chip” that could reduce dependence on animals for drug safety testing.
The device is about the size of a rubber eraser, and it mimics the boundary between the air sac and the bloodstream. It can respond to bacteria or airborne pollutants the same way a lung in a living body responds, so that it could be used to test the effects of environmental toxins, the absorption of aerosolized therapeutics, to evaluate drug safety.
Researcher at Harvard’s Wyss Institute used tissue engineering and novel microfabrication techniques along with human lung and blood vessel cells and a vacuum pump to fashion the device. According to Wyss Institute founding director Donald Ingber, “the ability of the lung-on-a-chip device to predict absorption of airborne nanoparticles and mimic the inflammatory response triggered by microbial pathogens, provides proof-of-principle for the concept that organs-on-chips could replace many animal studies in the future.” Ingber is senior author of a paper about the device which was published in the June 25 issue of Science. Via
Harvard Medical School Ms. Graham is a writer and editor with a broad publishing background and a current focus on health and wellness. To read more of her articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by
Erin Monda