Lung-on-a-Chip Simulates Pulmonary Fibrosis

Developing new medicines to treat pulmonary fibrosis, one of the most common and serious forms of lung disease, is not easy. One reason: it’s difficult to mimic how the disease damages and scars lung tissue over time, often forcing scientists to employ a hodgepodge of time-consuming and costly techniques to assess the effectiveness of potential treatments. Now, new biotechnology reported in the journal Nature Communications could streamline the drug-testing process. The innovation relies on the same technology used to print electronic chips, photolithography. Only instead of semiconducting materials, researchers placed upon the chip arrays of thin, pliable lab-grown lung tissues — in other words, its lung-on-a-chip technology. “Obviously it’s not an entire lung, but the technology can mimic the damaging effects of lung fibrosis. Ultimately, it could change how we test new drugs, making the process quicker and less expensive,” says lead author Ruogang Zhao, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University at Buffalo. https://www.technologynetworks.com/cell-science/news/lung-on-a-chip-simulates-pulmonary-fibrosis-304417?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63307092&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9RAxsbHUU-o0b4uftFt3oppK3RO_7ymLrr5_orQQTXM__LNRS4lBEFWYWH7qAUoj0PVnDmN3p3AfIDJ2SQXEeWLDQKFg&_hsmi=63307092