Artificial Microlungs Grown on Chips

Microlungs grown from human lung tissue could replace animal testing. The chip...it's breathing

By Dan Smith Posted 06.17.2009 at 5:18 pm 8 Comments

Microlung: savior to rats labs-wide via New Scientist

Rats used for testing drugs and cosmetics might soon be replaced by lab-grown human lungs. “Microlungs” are lung cells harvested from humans and grown onto plastic scaffolding. A handful of drug companies are already testing the technique, which grows cells that mimic functioning lungs. It may one day help end the need for animal testing stages in drug development.

Cell biologist Kelly BéruBé pioneered the creation of the microlung. She was able to get cells, resembling the inner lining of lungs, to grow and differentiate onto flat plastic scaffolds. Her team then got the cells to grow around tiny half-millimeter-in-diameter spheres embedded into a chip that creates artificial lung alveoli. These alveoli can then be used to show how cells react to a variety of stimuli or chemicals.

This advancement could save the lives of an unreal number of rats. First consider that the European Union alone has about 30,000 chemicals whose lung toxicities need to be tested within the next decade. For each chemical about 200 rats are needed to test the effects of a single dose. If chronic exposure is to be tested on that chemical, about 3000 are needed. Not only would these microlungs save countless animal lives, but it could streamline the drug development process by skipping the animal testing phase and experimenting directly on human tissue.

I’m sure rats everywhere are breathing tiny sighs of relief.

[New Scientist]

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8 Comments

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Richardh2034

07/20/09 at 11:44 pm

Ben "sighs"

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shrivastav5

01/05/10 at 4:03 am

Researchers at the University of Cardiff, UK, have already managed to grow human lung cells into flat differentiated layers that resemble the inner lining of the lungs. But when allowed to grow in three dimensions, as in the body, cells arrange themselves very differently, and this can change how they respond to chemical stimuli. A popular approach is to seed plastic scaffolds with stem cells to grow artificial 'organs.

But the researchers have found an alternative which could allow thousands of drugs to be screened at once. Instead of large scaffolds, they have grown lung cells on the surface of plastic spheres half a millimetre in diameter, essentially producing a tiny inside-out lung around each bead. The ultimate aim is to develop a chip on which

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changsunha

06/26/10 at 1:21 am

Thank you very much. You’re so kind.
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KruGer

09/14/10 at 5:03 pm

Thank you very much. You’re so kind
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10/11/10 at 3:28 am

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