Scientists build human lungs in dish to test medicines
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Loading... - Ella Martin
- 12 Apr 2023
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Scientists have developed a step-by-step blueprint to create advanced human lung models in the lab, which they say will accelerate the discovery and development of new drugs and reduce reliance on animal testing.
The research due to be published in Biomaterials Research is available online as a preprint, led by the University of Sydney’s Dr Huyen Phan with collaborators from Australia, South Korea and China.
Lab-made lungs, known as organoids or mini organs, are 3D structures grown from human primary cells that mirror real organs in the body. They serve as a testing ground for biomedical research.
enior author Professor Wojciech Chrzanowski, Professor of Nanomedicine in the Sydney Pharmacy School, Faculty of Medicine, and member of the Charles Perkins Centre, said: “This work is significant because we will be able to reduce the number of animals in medical research and accelerate the discovery of new drugs or innovative strategies to treat diseases.
“We decided to build two different lung models, one of which mimics phase one clinical trials; a healthy lung to study safety of new drugs. The other one mimics phase two trials; a diseased lung that, in our case, mirrors chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, enabling us to study the therapeutic effectiveness or superiority of the drugs.
“We take cells directly from patients and then build them in layers as they exist inside the body. So, first you have the epithelial cells, then you have the fibroblasts – we are literally creating a mimic organ that is very much like actual human lungs.” Read More..
