Air sacs in the lungs called alveoli are crucial for gas exchange and provide an important barrier against inhaled viruses and bacteria that cause respiratory diseases like flu and tuberculosis (TB). However, there remains a gap in developing immunocompetent and experimentally accessible alveolar systems to study human respiratory diseases. In a new study published in Science Advances titled, “Autologous human iPSC–derived alveolus-on-chip reveals early pathological events of Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection,” researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and AlveoliX have developed what they describe as the first human lung-on-a-chip model using stem cells taken from a single human donor. The chip can simulate breathing motions and lung disease in an individual, holding promise for testing treatments for infections like TB and delivering personalized medicine. Due to its significance in homeostasis and promise for drug delivery, many in vitro human models have been developed to circumvent the differences in anatomy, immune cell composition, and disease pathogenesis between human and animals. Organ-on-chip technologies have emerged as predictive tissue modeling tools and reliable alternative to animal testing. “Given the increasing need for non-animal technologies, organ-on-chip approaches are becoming ever more important to recreate human systems, avoiding differences in lung anatomy, makeup of immune cells and disease development between animals and humans,” said Max Gutierrez, PhD, principal group leader of the host-pathogen interactions in tuberculosis laboratory at the Crick and corresponding author of the study. “Composed of entirely genetically identical cells, the chips could be built from stem cells from people with particular genetic mutations. This would allow us to understand how infections like…
