The future is now! Scientists at the University of Edinburgh have succeeded in developing a body-on-a-chip. This innovative model replicates as many as five human organs, allowing processes within the human body to be studied even more accurately. This significant step brings us closer than ever to animal-free drug research.
How does the body-on-a-chip work?
By using human cells, scientists have managed to replicate the human heart, lungs, kidneys, liver, and brain on the body-on-a-chip. Small channels act as a sort of vascular system, connecting the replicated organs and enabling interaction between them.
The end result: a chip that enables scientists to investigate how a drug flows through a person’s body.
Unique and cruelty free
According to Liam Carr, a PhD student and the inventor of this body-on-a-chip, the model is the first of its kind: “The chip is specifically designed to measure the distribution of drugs. It allows us to see where a new drug goes in the body and how long it stays there, without having to use a human or animal.”
This makes Carr’s body-on-a-chip stand out from other multi-organs-on-a-chip, such as the one developed in 2018 by the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the chips from Dutch researchers Bas van Balkom and Roos Masereeuw. Because the distribution of drugs across the organs in Carr’s model is equivalent, the duration a drug remains in the body and its effects on our organs can be investigated more accurately.
Not only that: besides testing drugs, the body-on-a-chip can also provide insights into diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Liam Carr explains: “For example, we could create a model of fatty liver disease in the device and use it to see how a diseased liver affects other organs, such as the heart or the brain.”
We’re further along than you think
We all want safe medicines that work. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of laboratory animals pay the price for this every year. To investigate whether a drug works, it is first extensively tested. And because we want to know not just the effect of a drug on one organ but on our entire body, animal testing eventually becomes the method of choice.
In vain: because about 90% of the drugs developed with animal testing turn out to be unsafe for humans in the end. Fortunately, this is changing, thanks in part to the body-on-a-chip. Now that the chip has been developed, extensive testing and scaling up are required. We are therefore closely following this wonderful development!
In the video below it is explained how the chip works
Vote for animals
Following this fantastic news, it’s the moment to seize the opportunity. And with the European elections approaching, we’re doing this by calling on parliamentary candidates to sign a manifesto for animal welfare.
Take 3 minutes to make your voice heard on behalf of all those animals who don’t have one.