Artificial Organ Tests move to Next Level

Researchers at Imperial College London (ICL) have made a breakthrough in the use of artificial human organs, having become the first in the world to test how pathogens interact with a simulated human organ.

Using in particular an artificial liver originally developed at MIT, the University of Oxford and biotechnology company CN Bio Innovations, the scientists have successfully tested its response to hepatitis B virus infection.
Organ-on-chip technologies, which simulate a whole organ's cell make up and physiology, act as alternatives to animal models in drug safety testing, but until now they have not been used to test how infectious diseases interact with the organs.
Dr Marcus Dorner, lead author from Imperial's School of Public Health, said: "This is the first time that organ-on-a-chip technology has been used to test viral infections. Our work represents the next frontier in the use of this technology. We hope it will ultimately drive down the cost and time associated with clinical trials, which will benefit patients in the long run."
The research showed that the liver-on-a-chip technology could be infected with hepatitis B virus at physiological levels and had similar biological responses to the virus as a real human liver, including immune cell activation and other markers of infection. In particular, this platform uncovered the virus's intricate means of evading inbuilt immune responses - a finding which could be exploited for future drug development, potentially using individual human cell lines to test for reaction to certain drugs for their infection.
Although this technology is in its early stages, the researchers suggest that it might eventually enable patients to have access to new types of personalised medicine. Rather than using generic cells lines, doctors in the future could potentially use cells from an actual patient and test how they would react to certain drugs for their infection, which may make treatments more targeted and effective.
Dr Dorner said: "Once we begin testing viruses and bacteria on other artificial organs, the next steps could be to test drug interaction with the pathogens within the organ-on-chip environment."
Other organs-on-chips currently in use include the heart, kidneys, and lungs.