Testing new drugs for safety and effectiveness is acostly process in the United States. It also can take alot of time. Some scientists are now designing siliconcomputer chips that act like human organs. Thescientists think they have found a way to make theprocess faster and more economical.
The silicon chips are smaller than a child's hand. Eachone has living cells that act and react like a humanorgan. The chips are being created as part of aprogram to test the safety of drug compounds. It iscalled the Tissue Chip for Drug Screening Program.
It is a project of the US National Center for AdvancingTranslational Sciences, or NCATS. Danilo Tagle is thecenter’s Associate Director. He says a three-dimensional computer chip can be designed to act likea human lung. He describes how such a device wouldoperate.
“In that case, it would be cells representing the airsacs, that would be represented on these bioengineered devices and allowing it to breatheand expand, and be able to take in air, take in fluids justlike a normal lung would. In the case of a heart, it wouldbe representing the heart muscles and be able to showcontractibility and regular beating of the heart muscles.”
Some computer chips contain very small models of thehuman digestive system. They copy the real function orduties of the human stomach and intestine, movingwhen breaking down food.
Drugs are added to the tiny organs for testing throughinstruments known as micro-tubes. Experiments withthe tissue chips have produced more detailedinformation than tests using animal or cell models.
NCATS just announced $17 million in grants to develop an entire humanorgan system over the next three years.
Researchers at Columbia University are working on a project that wouldcombine models of the heart, liver and circulatory system. The scientists hopeto test how well some drugs work on diseases of the heart and liver.
At Harvard University, researchers are developing a tissue chip modeled on the heart and lungs. Together, the heart and lungs are part of thecardiopulmonary system. Both the heart and lungs are targets of somediseases. Many new drugs fail during the testing process because they maydamage the heart. The Harvard researchers hope to create acardiopulmonary system model that acts like a human system, both when it isdiseased and in good, working condition.
Researchers say they can safely test the effects of a drug on different organsystems. They can use the tissue chips to observe a drug’s effect on theorgan or organs it is designed to target.
Scientists want to make the process of developing drugs simpler. They hopethe chips will help them find the safest and most successful drugs beforehuman testing begins.