Organs-on-a-Chip

Organs-on-a-chip are microscopic versions of human livers, hearts, lungs, and other organs. Grown from human cells in tiny plastic dishes, they replicate some (though usually not all) the tissue types, structure, and functions found in actual organs. 

Why would anyone want to do this? Because human organoids are perfect testing new drugs in the earliest stages of development. More than nine out of 10 new drugs fail their clinical trials. As many as half cannot repeat the results they achieved in test animals. Another 30 percent are too toxic. 

Clinicians usually find this out during Phase 2 testing, when they have spent years and roughly $200 million trying to bring these medicines to market. Failures raise the cost of drug development. They also limit the type of drugs pharmaceutical companies develop, since they need large markets, such as widespread chronic diseases, to compensate for costly failures.

For decades, researchers tried testing drugs on organ cells and tissues. It never worked. Organ cells on a slide lose their structure and diversity. Eventually, they stop acting like an organ. Organs-on-a-chip, however, preserve organ characteristics and react far more realistically when treated with drugs. 

Biomedical engineers continue to push the technology forward, developing systems that link together different types of organoids. This helps them better assess drug interactions. A liver medication, for example, might affect heart muscles. Multi-organ systems provide early warnings of such problems. 

Organs-on-a-chip are also ideal for exploring disease progression without putting humans at risk. While organoids may not behave exactly like natural organs, they enable researchers to run controlled experiments that focus on a particular interaction without the background noise of everything else going on in the body.

Meanwhile, biomedical engineers are building more functional and realistic organoids. This opens the door to one day growing replacement organs from a patient’s own cells.