Accurate prediction of human responsiveness to chemical exposure is difficult, often unreliable, and invariably expensive. Thus, Aegen Biosciences is developing a microfluidic biochip device called the Animal Chip. The Animal Chip system is a biochip device containing living cells segregated into discrete yet interconnected organ compartments. The organ compartments consist of a microfluidic array of channels that contain cultured mammalian cells selected to mimic key metabolic functions of different animal or human organ systems. The fluidics is designed such that the primary elements of the circulatory system of the animal are mimicked accurately. Test compounds are added to the re-circulating culture medium, interacting with the cells in the various organ compartments. The effects of these compounds and/or their metabolites on the various cell types are detected by measuring key indicators of cytotoxicity or drug efficacy. Unlike traditional in vitro assays, the Animal Chip more faithfully mimics the complex multi-tissue, multi-organ biology of the animal or human body. We believe that this device will greatly decrease dependency on expensive, time consuming and unpopular animal testing by predicting a priori which compounds are potentially toxic to humans. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: There is a pressing need in the pharmaceutical, chemical, and consumer products industries for new technologies that can accurately predict which compounds have the potential to be toxic to humans early in the development process. Refer to Section B5, Page 18.
