Tiny, simplified organs grown in a laboratory – known as organelles – could potentially make drug research and development a much faster process.
Scientists have managed to create a human 'body on a chip', consisting of several living tissues on a microscopic scale.
It has been called the most advanced laboratory model of the human body, and it can prove invaluable in the development of new drugs before they are used in real people.
Tiny organelles – about one-millionth the size of their real-life counterparts – are essentially a testing ground for researchers looking to develop drugs and fight disease. This is the latest step in a long series of advances in the ability to reproduce minute models of human body parts in the laboratory.
Similar patterns of interconnected organelles have already been used to faithfully reproduce results for drugs that are too toxic to remain on the market; the method can reveal problems not found in tests carried out on animals or cells cultured in petri dishes.
The new larger version introduces more organ models, increasing the chances of catching dangerous side effects.
“The creation of microscopic human organs for drug testing is a logical extension of our work to create human-scale organs,” says medical scientist Thomas Schupe of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM).
“Many of the same technologies that we developed at the human level, including the very natural environment in which cells live, also produced excellent results when compressed to a microscopic level.”
Schupe and his colleagues used what they describe as a 'biotechnology toolbox' to create miniature organs that include the human brain, heart, liver, lungs, vasculature, and colon.
Each organoid started out with a tiny sample of human tissue cells and stem cells, which then grew into tiny organs. They mimic many of the functions of the real organ they copy, and may include blood vessel cells, immune cells, and connective tissue fibroblasts.
A half dozen shrunken organs were brought together in close proximity to represent a simplified human body, allowing researchers to see how different parts of our anatomy might react in combination when certain drugs are applied. This insight can be invaluable.
“We knew we needed to include all of the major cell types that were present in the original organ,” says biomechanical engineer Alex Scardahl of Ohio State University. “To simulate the body's different responses to toxic compounds, we needed to include all the cell types that trigger those reactions.”
The organelles the team has developed can give life to tests previously performed on 2D tissue samples, giving experts a more complete and realistic view of the effects that a particular drug can have.
With only 1 in 5,000 drugs entering the market out of preclinical trials entering the market, the drug development process has great potential to improve efficacy and safety.
We could get new drugs faster, less costly, and without much (or any) need for animal testing if realistic organoid-based human simulations were developed.
“The most important ability of the human tissue system is the ability to determine if a drug is toxic to humans at a very early stage of development, and its potential use in personalized medicine,” says urologist Anthony Atala of WFIRM.
“Avoiding problem drugs in the early stages of development or treatment can literally save billions of dollars and potentially save lives.”
The study was published in Biofabrication.
