Human-on-a-chip: next frontier in developing drugs, fighting disease, replacing animal use

What do NASA, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Defense have in common? They all need better research tools to keep people safe and healthy. Recent initiatives organized and funded by these agencies have focused on miniaturizing human organs and systems—such as the brain, kidney, and even the female reproductive system—to accurately predict the effects of drugs and chemicals on our health. Up next: disease model research, pharmaceutical efficacy testing, and microgravity research in space. These human tissues-on-chips are the next frontier in developing drugs, fighting disease, and replacing animal use.

Science enthusiasts; patient, research, and health advocates; and animal lovers can all celebrate, as the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) announced on Oct. 18 that it will continue and expand its human tissue chip testing programs.

{mosads}Building on the success of the initial program, which focused on predicting whether a medicine will be safe or toxic to humans, the expanded program will develop disease research models on chips and tissue chips for determining whether a medicine is likely to be an effective treatment. NCATS also announced an exciting collaboration using the tissue chips to study the effects of microgravity on human health and disease.

Medicine can be an important part of a patient’s treatment plan, yet safe and effective medications are often not available. In order to determine whether a potential medicine is likely to be safe and effective in humans, the FDA requires preclinical tests. Traditionally, preclinical tests have been conducted using animals, but scientists, stakeholders, and federal agencies will acknowledge—to varying degrees—that using animals to attempt to predict safety and efficacy in humans is not ideal.

In 2004, the FDA issued a report stating that 92 percent of drugs that appear safe in animals later fail in humans. According to a recent request for information issued by the NIH, this number has since increased to 95 percent. NCATS further clarifies that 30 percent of drugs fail because they are unsafe, and 65 percent fail because they do not work.

In recent testimony to a congressional subcommittee, NIH director Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., stated that animal safety testing for environmental chemicals and drugs will largely be replaced by tissue chips and iPS cells within 10 years.

Thanks to forward-thinking innovative science conducted by private industry, technology developers, academia, and the government, as well as funding from the federal government and animal protection organizations, this isn’t just wishful thinking. Many human-focused technologies exist today, and others continue to emerge.

Among the most innovative and exciting is the Tissue Chip for Drug Screening program led by NCATS, in collaboration with other NIH Institutes and Centers, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the FDA.

This program is creating an integrative human-on-a-chip by developing bioengineered devices to accurately model the structure and function of human organs.

These tissue chips will revolutionize preclinical testing by offering scientists the opportunity to test potential medicines in systems that better predict whether a potential medication will be safe and effective for humans, because it is tested in a system that is based on human biology. It will also allow scientists to more easily consider differences between how men and women react to drugs, and how our organs react to combinations of treatments, than is possible in animals.

These announcements reflect a much-needed shift in testing, as well as NCATS’ commitment to advancing science and improving the safety and efficacy of medicines.

Elizabeth Baker, Esq., is senior science policy specialist at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine