Tissue Engineer Linda Griffith and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are currently creating what is essentially a miniature human liver on a silicon chip. Several years ago Griffith set out to produce an artificial liver that would remove the need for liver transplants. However, while she was working on this she realized that the most common reason why people need liver transplants is because they are infected with hepatitis C. She then thought that it would be better to help develop a way to help her fellow scientists develop drugs to treat hepatitis C, thus curing the patient and removing the need for transplant surgery, so she set about working on making recreating a liver on a silicon chip. Developing drugs to treat hepatitis C has been notoriously difficult as hepatitis viruses don’t infect human liver cells in vitro. Therefore, Griffith and her team are trying to “replicate the structure, as well as the mechanical forces, so that we can hopefully replicate the function.” If successful, such a chip would significantly speed up the drug design and development process for drugs to treat hepatitis and other ailments. The technology would also helps scientists studying liver cancer and gene therapy, and would revolutionize the way that companies test new chemicals for toxicity.
SOURCE/REFERENCE: MIT Technology Review March 2003
