When testing a new medicine, researchers must do more than assess how well that drug works. They also have to determine whether the medicine has some negative, unintended consequences.
To do that now, scientists have a couple of choices in pre-clinical studies: They test the drugs in vitro – that is, with laboratory equipment outside the body – and in vivo – that is, in animal models.
But a growing number of researchers are experimenting with a third way, something that’s sort of in between the two. It’s called organ-on-a-chip, and it involves growing real tissue from a human organ on a small structure that mimics what that organ tissue would experience inside a body.
Organ-on-a-chip devices use tiny structures called microfluidic channels to bring small, controlled amounts of fluid into contact with tissue cultures. These devices can be used to study how cells react to certain molecular compounds such as medications, or to observe how different types of cells interact with each other. Left: This device features a single channel with a stationary cell culture in the middle. Right: This device features two channels that overlap at a central intersection, with cells flowing through them.
Credit: Sean Kelley/NIST
These structures are not computer chips but microfluidic devices – tiny instruments that provide the moist environment that body tissue needs to thrive, complete with a fluid that brings nutrients to mimic, to some extent, what the blood does in the body when flowing past cells. In recent years, more sophisticated microfluidic devices have also been made that expand and contract tissue to simulate, for example, conditions within the lungs.
By mimicking the organ’s microenvironment, researchers hope to get a better idea of how the medications might affect these tissues in a person wit ..
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