MIT researchers build device that may revolutionise drug testing

Researchers have similarly created an 'organ-on-a-chip,' 'menstrual-cycle-on-a-chip' and a 'stem-cell-on-a-chip.'

But unlike those devices, MIT's microfluidic device is able to simulate how a drug might affect several key organs, rather than, say, just the liver.

The paperback-sized device, called a 'body-on-a-chip,' can hold up to 10 artificial organs, such as the liver, lung, gut, endometrium, brain, heart, pancreas, kidney, skin and skeletal muscle.

The paperback-sized device, called a 'body-on-a-chip,' can hold up to 10 artificial organs, such as the liver, lung, gut, endometrium, brain, heart, pancreas, kidney, skin and skeletal muscle

According to MIT, microfluidic platforms place various kinds of human cells into a device and then push fluid through them to model blood flow, according to MIT.

The process is capable of replicating human organ interactions over several weeks, according to the MIT researchers. 

This could help in the evaluation of antibody drugs and other immunotherapies. Due to the difference in animal and human immune systems, testing is difficult in non-human trials, but the system could help with that.

“Some of these effects are really hard to predict from animal models because the situations that lead to them are idiosyncratic,” study author Linda Griffith, a professor of biological engineering and mechanical engineering at MIT, said in a press release. 

“With our chip, you can distribute a drug and then look for the effects on other tissues, and measure the exposure and how it is metabolised.”