Pieces
of silicon that is smaller than the hands of children is coated with
living cells that function and react like organs in the body. These
pieces were created as part of Tissue Chip for Drug Screening program to
evaluate the safety of drug compounds.
The
program is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational
Sciences (NCATS), which Danilo Tagle served as director. Tagle describe
how the three-dimensional pieces that were created in order to mimic the
workings of the lungs.
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| A neurovascular unit on a chip being developed by Vanderbilt University researchers. (Picture from: http://bit.ly/1uCSzLa) |
"In
that case, the cells will replace the role of an air bag, a special
tool designed to breathe and expand, and can suck air and fluid as
normal lung. For the heart, this tool will replace the heart muscle, and
can demonstrate the ability to expand and deflate and beating heart
muscle proper, "he said.
These
pieces that contain very small replicas of the digestive system, can
function like the human stomach and intestines, which move when
digesting food. Drugs included in this small organs and through
micro-pipes. Experiment with pieces of this network has resulted in more
accurate data than the conventional test using animal models or cell.
NCATS
has recently provided a grant of US $ 17 million for the next three
years to develop a system of organs of the human body as a whole. "So
this will be an integrated, interrelated and function, almost like a
human body in a chip," he said.
With
an interconnected system, the researchers say they can safely evaluate
the impact of a drug on different organ systems, for example, to see the
level of liver toxicity, as well as monitor the impact on the targeted
organ.
New
drugs could have passed the laboratory safety tests on animals, said
Tagle. "But once tested in humans, the drug turned out to cause toxic
side effects," he said.
Scientists
want to streamline the drug development process; they hoped that the
network chip is able to recognize which drugs are best and most secure
before clinically tested in humans. *** [EKA | FROM VARIOUS SOURCES | VOA NEWS]
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