"Lungs on a chip" instead of experimental rats

The new lung model will allow you to abandon animal experiments
Copper newsA biologist from the UK has developed a technique for creating an artificial human lung, which is intended for studies of the toxic effects of volatile substances, reports 

New Scientist.

Cell biology specialist from the University of Cardiff Kelly BeruBe has modernized the well-known method of creating artificial living tissues of our body by growing them from stem cells on plastic frames. When developing models of lung tissue, researchers have difficulty creating its three-dimensional structure necessary to reproduce the function of the organ.

To overcome this problem, Kelly Berube used hollow plastic balls with a diameter of 0.5 millimeters (left) as a frame, on the inner surface of which lung tissue was grown (center). These balls were connected in chains and combined into a complete model of the organ in the microreactor (right).

According to the creator, this development will help to avoid the use of laboratory animals to study the toxic properties of substances. This is justified not only from an ethical point of view, but also from an economic point of view – experiments on animals are expensive and lengthy.

About 200 laboratory rats are required to study the toxic effects of inhaling a single dose of the substance. The study of chronic manifestations of the harmful effects of inhaled toxins involves the use of more than three thousand experimental rodents.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru/18.06.2009