Human organ chips for radiation countermeasure development

MCMi regulatory science update

Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) is an illness affecting a combination of organs that occurs when the body receives a high dose of radiation over a short period of time, as could occur after a nuclear or radiological incident. The U.S. government has identified a need for safe and effective radiation medical countermeasures (MCMs) for military and civilian applications, as well as to mitigate toxicities associated with medical radiotherapies.

Although animal models are currently used for assessing efficacy of radiation MCMs, they often do not accurately predict clinical outcome in humans. In addition, certain candidate MCMs cannot be effectively studied in animal models because their activity is specific to humans. Thus, there is a crucial need for more predictive in vitro models of the effects of ionizing radiation on human tissue and organ function. Closing such knowledge gaps to further MCM development and availability is a key goal of the MCMi Regulatory Science Program.

In a new MCMi regulatory science project, the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering will build on past FDA-funded work that led to the development of human models of ARS in bone marrow, intestine, and lung organs-on-chips and the application of these tools to the evaluation of ARS MCMs.

Read more about this project

Image: The Wyss Institute’s gut-on-a-chip constricts and relaxes, just as in the human body, producing finger-like projections called villi, shown at left. (Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

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