National Institutes of Health Support Development of Human Tissue Models

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded $15 million in “Tissue Chips for Disease Modeling and Efficacy Testing” funding to support development of three-dimensional microphysiological platforms designed to help researchers more accurately predict how patients will respond to specific drugs. Known as tissue chips, the platforms will deepen scientific understanding of disease by mimicking the biological functions of human organs and systems, thus providing a novel way to test drug efficacy.

During the first phase of the 5-year program, researchers will study a range of diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, kidney disease and influenza, as well as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia and arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Eventually, the teams will partner with pharmaceutical companies to further evaluate the usefulness of validated disease models (i.e., those that accurately mimic disease biology) in assessing candidate drugs vetted using tissue chip technology.