Name: Body parts on a chip
Uploaded: 2013-12-03T16:08:24Z
Duration: 13 min 9 s
Description: It's relatively easy to imagine a new medicine -- the hard part is testing it, and that can delay promising new cures for years. In this well-explained talk, Geraldine Hamilton shows how her lab creates organs and body parts on a chip, simple structures with all the pieces essential to testing new medications -- perhaps even custom cures made for one specific person.

It's relatively easy to imagine a new medicine -- the hard part is testing it, and that can delay promising new cures for years. In this well-explained talk, Geraldine Hamilton shows how her lab creates organs and body parts on a chip, simple structures with all the pieces essential to testing new medications -- perhaps even custom cures made for one specific person.

Body parts on a chip

Traditional drug testing using cells in dishes and animal models is often expensive, slow, and unreliable, leaving patients waiting for new therapies. In a striking breakthrough, scientists have created 'organs-on-chips': living, dynamic human tissues engineered on microchips that mimic the body’s complexity. These chips can model infections, predict drug responses, and even connect multiple organs to simulate a human body. One lung-on-a-chip in the lab can actually breathe, respond to bacteria, and trigger immune defenses just like a real lung.