Organ-on-chip technology to revolutionise drug development
The Pharmaceutical Journal, (August 2014)Abstract
Pioneering work in the United States to create organs-on-chips could revolutionise the future of drug development. Four years ago scientists observed how a white blood cell reacts when it senses an infection. They watched the leukocyte as it wriggled through capillary cells — the cells that line blood vessels — and then through the cells that line the lung, to then engulf an invading bacterium. But this was not happening inside a patient, it was happening on a microchip1. “It mimics the human response, it’s amazing to watch,” says Geraldine Hamilton, senior staff scientist at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.