Lab on a Chip

When conducting cardiac research, it would be ideal if experiments could be performed on actual living human hearts. Scientists have developed what may be the next-best thing, in the form of a tiny mechanical heart powered by real cardiac cells.

A new breakthrough could help unravel the immune system's secrets. Researchers have created an accurate model of the human immune system in a microfluidic chip, providing a better platform to study how immune cells respond to vaccines and pathogens.

While scientists have successfully produced various "organ-on-a-chip" models of body parts, the eye is particularly challenging, as a tear film is regularly moved across its surface as we blink. That action has recently been replicated, in a new device.

One consequence of cancer and other diseases spreading throughout the body can be the hardening of the extracellular matrix surrounding cells. Scientists have now developed a new way to non-destructively detect such changes using sound waves.

Scientists have pieced together 10 devices that mimic the functions of different organs to create a functioning Body-on-Chips platform, which can offer new and comprehensive insights into how prospective drugs will behave throughout the human body.

We're seeing an increasing number of organ-on-a-chip devices, in which small pieces of living biological tissue are used to replicate the functions of actual organs. Now, scientists have created a tooth-on-a-chip, which mimics a tooth with a cavity.

​Despite the fact that dry eye disease (DED) is a relatively common condition, there are relatively few drugs approved for its treatment. This is because the testing of such medications on actual human eyes would be quite risky. With that in mind, scientists have developed a blinking eye-on-a-chip.

​We've already seen a robotic device that's capable of inserting intravenous needles in people's arms. Now, researchers from New Jersey's Rutgers University have designed a system for drawing and analyzing blood samples.

If sepsis is addressed too late, it can result in organ failure and ultimately death. Scientists at the University of Illinois are working at detecting the harmful immune response quicker than ever, with a new lab-on-a-chip device.​

Scientists have developed what's been described as "the female menstrual cycle in a dish." Known as Evatar, the system contains actual human tissue, and incorporates interconnected 3D models of the ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, cervix, vagina and liver.

With little more than a standard inkjet printer, some silicone, and a sheet of polymer film, Stanford researchers have created a reusable diagnostic "lab on a chip" that costs just 1 cent to make. This new technology could help vastly improve disease detection worldwide.

Organs-on-chips allow the study of drugs and diseases without testing on animals or humans. Now a team at Harvard has designed a device that smokes cigarettes and sends the smoke through a lung-on-a-chip, to examine just how the habit damages health.