Revolutionizing Medical Research: The Promise of Organ-on-a-Chip Technology
Recent years have seen groundbreaking advancements in medical research. With the development of organ-on-a-chip technology, it could bring an end to animal testing.
Here's what's happening: Over 115 million animals worldwide are used for drug, product safety and effectiveness testing. However, with this paradigm shift in the field of medical research, this might change. By approving the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Modernization Act 2.0, it green-lit experimental alternatives instead of testing new drugs on animals. This move boosted the research and development of organ chips.
Organ-on-a-chip devices utilise biology and engineering principles to study human organs in a laboratory setting, mimicking the environment inside the body, including blood flow and breathing movements. Researchers pump drugs through the channel that is lined with human cells. Afterwards, data is collected on biochemical markers, cellular responses, and more. The data is then analyzed using computational models and algorithms to extract information.
Since its invention in 2010, it has become truly exceptional. One such instance of this is with a company called Emulate. The company used a liver on a chip to screen twenty-seven drugs that passed animal testing but caused liver toxicity in humans, and the chip could flag eighty-seven percent of the compounds that caused toxicity.
Not only does organ-on-a-ship technology potentially wipe out the need for animal testing, but it also provides researchers with a more reliable platform. There is no denying that this holds great promise for various fields of research and application.
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