Creating the human body ... miniature in the laboratory

Researchers have created what is arguably the most sophisticated laboratory model in the world for the human body.

Although it sounds like those in horror movies, the reality is that researchers hope to create a lab model that involves creating miniature human body parts that can become so invaluable for drug testing and biomedical research.

Reported in the journal Biofovenation, scientists from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) in North Carolina created an organ tissue system who has a miniature heart-like organ that beats around 60 times. minute, a lungs breathe air from the surroundings, and a liver as well as the testes.

This will be an invaluable tool for scientists who want to understand the human body.

Although only a millionth of the size of a full-sized adult organ, the special body systems on a chip have remarkable details, complete with vascular cells. , immune system cells and connective tissue cells, containing a microfluidic circuit that can circulate a drug throughout the system between organs, in the same way that the cardiovascular system pumps molecules through the child people in the blood.

One of the study authors, Thomas Shupe of WFIRM, said the creation of microscopic human body parts for drug testing is a reasonable extension of the work completed in the construction of organs. human scale. Many of the same technologies they have been developed at the human level, including a very natural environment for living cells, also produce great results when taken down to the microscopic level.

This will be an invaluable tool for scientists who want to understand the human body. One of the most surprising breakthroughs, researchers recently observed that organic matter in the brain began to show signs of brain waves like premature babies.

The researchers are hoping this technology could be used to understand how brain cells grow into extremely complex human organs.

They are also extremely useful for testing new pharmaceutical drugs because they react, in theory, like a real human organ. In addition, they are safe and relatively low cost.

The newly developed miniature organ model has been used for several trials to assess the toxicity of some drugs. In some cases, the model will show that a drug may be dangerous or have some undesirable effects, so it has the ability to prevent harm to humans.

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