FDA warms up to organ-on-a-chip tech to assess countermeasures for nuclear attack

Developing medical countermeasures to deal with an unexpected nuclear event from a meltdown to terrorism is a significant area of interest for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But when it comes to developing treatments for radiation sickness from overexposure, it doesn’t exactly lend itself to human testing. Animals don’t offer an attractive alternative because they respond differently to radiation.

Enter organ-on-a-chip technology. The technology is designed to replicate human organs using a microchip. The FDA awarded Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering a $5.6 million contract. In return, Wyss Institute scientists will develop models of radiation damage in lung, gut and bone marrow organs-on-chips and then use those models to test medical countermeasures, according to a press statement.

The Wyss Institute has gotten some considerable coverage for its development of a lung-on-a-chip.

Organ-on-a-chip is being used by some drug developers as an alternative to animal testing with the argument that it offers a better model for a drug’s effect on human organs compared with animals.

GlaxoSmithKline researchers have used organ-on-a-chip technology to test new treatments for pulmonary edemas in patients with chronic heart failure. Hurel Corp. is developing organ-on-a-chip technology. Earlier this year it raised $9.2 million in a Series A round for the development of its liver-on-a-chip to assess a drug’s toxicity in pre-clinical trials.

Dr. Luciana Borio the FDA’s assistant commissioner for counterterrorism policy said the technology has “enormous promise” for deepening the understanding of new medical countermeasures “particularly when it is unethical or unfeasible to conduct efficacy studies in humans; and when available animal models have limited use in accurately predicting human response.”