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The lung is one of the tissues most sensitive to radiation in the human body. People exposed to high radiation doses following nuclear incidents develop radiation-induced lung injury (RILI), which affects the function of many cell types in the lung, causing acute and sustained inflammation, and in the longer term, the thickening and scarring of lung tissue known as fibrosis.
<p>Researchers have developed a human <em>in vitro</em> model that closely mimics the complexities of radiation-induced lung injury (RILI) and radiation dose sensitivity of the human lung. Using a previously developed microfluidic human Lung Alveolus Chip lined by human lung alveolar epithelial cells interfaced with lung capillary cells to recreate the alveolar-capillary interface <em>in vitro</em>, the researchers recapitulated many of the hallmarks of RILI, including radiation-induced DNA damage in lung tissue, cell-specific changes in...
E-Mail A Wyss Institute-led collaboration spanning four research labs and hundreds of miles has used the Institute's organ-on-a-chip (Organ Chip) technology to identify the antimalarial drug amodiaquine as a potent inhibitor of infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The Organ Chip-based drug testing ecosystem established by the collaboration greatly streamlines the process of evaluating the safety and efficacy of existing drugs for new medical applications, and provides a proof-of-concept for the use of Organ Chips to rapidly repurpose existing drugs for new medical app...