MIT team serves chips to advance biomed tests
Could take place of animal experiments
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a “body on a chip” that can test the effects of medications on the human body, which could someday do away with animal testing, scientists say.
“What we’re trying to show is the possibility that you can actually have complicated organ interactions in a lab,” said Linda Griffith, lead researcher and MIT professor of biological engineering.
“The end goal is to replace animals, and this is a really important step.”
Griffith and her colleagues constructed a rectangular chip about half the size of a piece of notebook paper and an inch thick. Using stem cells and samples of human donor tissue, the medication is pumped through mini models of 10 organs to test whether there are adverse effects.
The system is kept in an incubator and has several mini-pumps driven by air and vacuum.
The replicas include the liver, gut, pancreas, reproductive tract, heart, lungs and central nervous system, according to the paper published in the journal Scientific Reports.
“So we can take a drug and make a mathematical model of how it might interact,” Griffith said. “We’re a long way away, but our paper really demonstrates what’s possible.”
The system, once perfected and widely used, would improve medical testing in two main ways, Griffith said: It would stop inhumane practices against animals, and lead to more accurate research.
“Animals are not representative of people,” Griffith said. “Many diseases in which the animal looks like it has a similar disease, the molecular mechanisms are different.”
Griffith’s lab is in the process of developing a model for Parkinson’s disease that includes brain, liver and gastrointestinal tissue. She plans to research whether a particular bacteria in the gut can influence the onset of Parkinson’s.
The system could also be used to test how tumors metastasize throughout the body, she said.
The research was funded by the U.S. Army Research Office and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.