Organs you can hold in your hands’ sound like the work of science fiction or the canopic jars of the Egyptian pharaohs. But this is not too far from the present with organs tissue being made on chips (and no, not the salt and vinegar kind). These have been hailed by many as the future of drug development  and an alternative to animal testing. I first heard about organs-on-chips about 5 years ago, they were mentioned as a technology of the future. But while looking into drug research with stem cells I rediscovered these chips and wanted to explore how they are used and what the next 5 years could look like.

What are organs on chips (OoC)?

Simply put they are microchips that are designed to mimic human organs. These contain living cells from different organs like the brain, bones, heart and lungs. They were originally theorised by Michael Shuler who envisioned connecting these to make a whole ‘body on a chip’.

Applications- Drug Development

Currently drug development takes an average of £1.22 billion, 13.5 years and 92% of drugs fail the strict regulations. This staggeringly high failure rate is due to testing on animal (generally mice) before humans. Animal testing unreliably predict if drugs will work due to genetic and immune differences to humans. The current inaccurate, expensive, and lengthy process for drugs development demands a new approach.

OoC’s could Refine testing by Reducing and Replacing the use of animal models. These 3R’s are part of the European Union’s guidelines on ethical animal testing. If regulatory authorities allow the use of OoC’s It would reduce public objections to testing drugs and cosmetics on animals. However, a major drawback of organ-on-a-chip technology is that it only mimics single organs. This means it can’t show how drugs are processed in interacting organs, like the stomach, before reaching their target, which could lead to inaccurate results.

Pros and cons

The future: Patient-on-a-chip

Researchers are currently striving to develop body-on-chip technology. These would connect existing chips together to form a body circuit, that could mimic a drug’s pathway through the body.

I can imagine in the future:

Going to your GP with high blood pressure and they suggest several medications - luckily, they are printing your body chip now- with your stem cells, from your frozen umbilical cord stored when you were born. Now the doctor can test each treatment in your body chip and within a couple of hours your prescription is ready for you. It’s for the drug which will work the best for you with the fewest side effects.

Although this may sound a but far fetched, personalised medicine is a key focus in the NHS's strategy to improve outcomes. These have the potential to save millions of lives, but rely on a cell source. Cells from biopsies are generally uncontentious as there are thorough consent procedures and they involve adult cells. To enable personalised body chips, mesenchymal stem cells would be ideal. However this is accompanied by more legal, religious, and social scrutiny. For drug companies to change their historic means of testing there needs to be a regulatory pathway to integrate OoC’s into the clinical trial stages.