Wyss Puts Cells on Chips

Thanks to a new partnership between the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard and Sony Digital Audio Disc Corporation, scientists will soon be able to simulate human organs outside of the body using live cells—a technique that could revolutionize drug testing.

The Wyss Institute announced last week that it will collaborate with Sony to market the Organ-on-a-Chip, a device that integrates computer manufacture technology and biological principles to recreate organs.

First presented by the Wyss Institute in the publication Science in 2010, the chip is the size of a computer memory stick and features a micro channel lined with living cells from a single organ. The cell channel is stretched and compressed on each side by parallel, flexible air channels. These allow researchers to create cell environments more realistic than those developed in prior studies.

“In the past you put cells in a static culture dish and you’re done. Well, cells in the body don’t really function like that: they’re in dynamic systems, they experience mechanical forces like flow and shear, and our microfluidic techniques allow us to do that,” said Geraldine A. Hamilton, a senior staff scientist at the Wyss Institute. “We provide an environment that gives [the cells] the right cues and tell the cells how to function.”

Led by Wyss Institute founding director Donald E. Ingber, a team of researchers harnessed “techniques from the computer chip manufacturing industry to manufacture very small and very fine, precise features,” Hamilton said.

Because the functioning portion of the device is so small, relatively few cells are needed to construct a chip, making its production quick and inexpensive. This collection of cells could reduce the need for animal drug testing by recreating human systems on a small scale. Such environments would allow researchers to obtain accurate results related to human drug responses more effectively and safely, Hamilton said.

“We’re moving towards linking multiple organ systems together—moving towards a human body on a chip,” she added. “Because when you take a drug, its efficacy and its safety depend not just on one organ; the entire body is working together.” So far, the research team has developed organs-on-chips for the liver, heart, kidney, bone marrow, lungs, and gut.

“This is a game-changing technology. It will really require a company or organization that is going to take an entirely new approach to get this technology into the market,” said Hamilton. She added that the Wyss Institute is planning on spinning out a company to sell organs-on-chips and other instrumentation to pharmaceutical companies.

Ingber emphasized the importance of partnerships between industry and academia action.