Wyss Institute's Human Breathing Lung-on-a-Chip Mimics Pulmonary Edema (IMAGE)

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard

Wyss Institute's Human Breathing Lung-on-a-Chip Mimics Pulmonary Edema

Caption

The Wyss Institute’s human breathing lung-on-a-chip, made using human lung and blood vessel cells, acts much like a lung in a human body. A vacuum re-creates the way the lungs physically expand and contract during breathing. In the current study, when researchers applied the cancer drug IL-2, fluid from the bottom of the chip entered the air channel on the top, and the blood clotted--mimicking what happens when humans get pulmonary edema. Further, when they turned on the vacuum to simulate breathing, the fluid leakage was much worse--adding new insight to what scientists understand about this life-threatening condition.

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Wyss Institute, Harvard University

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Credit: Wyss Institute, Harvard University

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