Wyss Institute researchers and a multidisciplinary team of collaborators seek to build and link 10 human organs-on-chips to mimic whole body physiology. The system will incorporate the Institute’s Human Lung-on-a-Chip (top) and Human Gut-on-a-Chip (bottom). |
The Wyss Institute for
Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University this week announced
that it has entered into a Cooperative Agreement worth up to $37
million with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to
develop an automated instrument that integrates 10 human organs-on-chips
to study complex human physiology outside the body. This effort builds
on the Institute’s past breakthroughs in which Institute researchers
engineered microchips that recapitulate the microarchitecture and
functions of living organs, such as the lung, heart, and intestine. Each
individual organ-on-chip is composed of a clear flexible polymer—about
the size of a computer memory stick—that contains hollow microfluidic
channels lined by living human cells. Because the microdevices are
translucent, they provide a window into the inner-workings of human
organs without having to invade a living body.
With
this new DARPA funding, Institute researchers and a multidisciplinary
team of collaborators seek to build 10 different human organs-on-chips,
to link them together to more closely mimic whole body physiology, and
to engineer an automated instrument that will control fluid flow and
cell viability while permitting real-time analysis of complex
biochemical functions. As an accurate alternative to traditional animal
testing models that often fail to predict human responses, this
instrumented “human-on-a-chip” will be used to rapidly assess responses
to new drug candidates, providing critical information on their safety
and efficacy.
Several
U.S. agencies are working together to help safeguard Americans from
deliberate chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, as
well as from emerging infectious diseases, by drastically accelerating
the drug development process. As an example, DARPA, the National
Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) are actively collaborating to develop cutting edge technologies to
predict drug safety. The Wyss project was selected under the DARPA
Defense Sciences Office (DSO) Microphysiological Systems Program and
will be administered through a Cooperative Agreement by the Army
Research Office (ARO) and DARPA.
This
unique platform could help ensure that safe and effective therapeutics
are identified sooner, and ineffective or toxic ones are rejected early
in the development process. As a result, the quality and quantity of new
drugs moving successfully through the pipeline and into the clinic may
be increased, regulatory decision-making could be better informed, and
patient outcomes could be improved.
Jesse
Goodman, FDA Chief Scientist and Deputy Commissioner for Science and
Public Health, commented that the automated human-on-chip instrument
being developed “has the potential to be a better model for determining
human adverse responses. FDA looks forward to working with the Wyss
Institute in its development of this model that may ultimately be used
in therapeutic development.”
Wyss
Founding Director, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., and Wyss Core Faculty
member, Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D., will co-lead this five-year project.
Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at
Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston
Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard’s School
of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Parker is the Tarr Family
Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS. The
organ-on-chip program will also draw on the Institute’s leading
scientists and engineers, including Geraldine Hamilton, Ph.D., Anthony
Bahinski, Ph.D., and Daniel Levner, Ph.D., who have extensive industrial
experience in drug development, safety pharmacology, and systems
engineering, to accelerate translation of this technology from the lab
into the marketplace where it can best help the people who need it most.
Other key collaborators participating in the project include John
Wikswo, Ph.D., University Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University,
and Andrzej Przekwas, Ph.D., from CFD Research Corporation.
Source: Wyss Institute
Filed Under: Drug Discovery
