As growing body cells in laboratory is becoming gradually obsolescent, and as animal testing, in an age of exponential technological prowess, is turning increasingly primitive, biochemistry scientists are now developing a new, safer, and more personal method to test body cells: planting body cells on a chip.
By using the chips, as pictured above, scientists can observe the biological and chemical reactions yielded when these experimented cells interact with outer objects, for instance, bacteria, viruses, or any other chemical substances, in accordance to the genetic structures of every individual. With greater varieties in medication to treat persons with different biological reactions to medicines, personalized medicine will definitely save more lives in the future.
Geraldine Hamilton will explain further about how ‘organs-on-a-chip’ normally work. Click her full profile on TED.
Our bodies are dynamic environments. We’re in constant motion. Our cells experience that.They’re in dynamic environments in our body. They’re under constant mechanical forces. So if we want to make cells happy outside our bodies, we need to become cell architects. We need to design, build and engineer a home away from home for the cells.
And at the ViS Institute, we’ve done just that. We call it an organ-on-a-chip. And I have one right here. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? But it’s pretty incredible. Right here in my hand is a breathing, living human lung on a chip.