Emulate Archives - Medical Design Sourcing

How an airway-on-a-chip model can help identify promising antivirals for COVID-19

One of the first focuses of organ-chip specialist Emulate (Boston) was to reduce the need for animal testing over time. Its technology can simulate tissue-tissue interfaces within organs using human cells.

But the potential of the organ chips to yield mechanistic insights for drug discovery and understanding toxicities has become more evident over time.

The pandemic has underscored that promise, highlighting the potential of Emulate’s technology for drug discovery and vaccine testing.

A spinout of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Emulate’s human airway chip culture was highlighted earlier this year in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

Created with microchip manufacturing techniques and microfluidic culture technology, Emulate’s organ chips contain living human cells that simulate organ-level functions. The organ chips can “recreate tissue-tissue interfaces, which is what defines an organ,” said Dr. D…

Emulate debuts second-generation culture module

Boston-based Emulate has introduced the Zoë-CM2 culture module, which prolongs the life of cells within the company’s organ chips. The module can automate the conditions for culturing up to 12 chips.

The culture module is a component of Emulate’s Human Emulation System, which integrates instruments, consumables and software.

Emulate, which is a spinoff from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, initially intended to create organ chips to accelerate drug development by replacing animal testing.

The company’s mission has since expanded. “We realized that, essentially, organ chips provide a window on molecular-scale activities inside living human cells within a relevant tissue and organ context,” said Dr. Don Ingber, chair of Emulate’s scientific advisory board, in a recent webinar. Organ chips can yield mechanistic insights for drug discovery in terms of drug action and toxicities. For drug discovery, the technolog…

Why Emulate launched a colon intestine chip

Colon chip from Emulate

Emulate has debuted what it terms a “colon intestine chip” targeted at pharma and biotech companies, academics and other researchers. The company believes the system will accelerate the identification of drug candidates to treat inflammatory damage in the colon.

The technology could be a boon for understanding inflammatory bowel disease, which approximately 1.6 million people in the U.S. About 70,000 cases of the disease are diagnosed annually, according to the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. Many of those cases don’t respond to therapy, according to Lorna Ewart, executive vice president of science.

Emulate’s new intestine model combines human colonic organoids and supportive colonic endothelial cells to create an environment that simulates peristalsis.

In the following interview, Ewart describes potential applications of the new colon platform, touche…

As organs-on-chips advance, their potential for drug discovery grows

Cortical neuron staining in the Emulate Brain-Chip. Image courtesy of Emulate Inc.

Engineered microchips with living human cells have the potential to accelerate drug development and replace animal testing, said Dr. Donald Ingber, the founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

The organ-on-a-chip technology could also enable the industry to rethink its business model, Ingber said in a webinar from the Boston-based startup Emulate. While critics routinely criticize the pharmaceutical industry for price gouging, the blockbuster business model’s demise has threatened many firms’ profitability in the sector. R&D costs are another pressure. “It costs over $3 billion to go from the bench to the clinic at this point,” said Dr. Donald Ingber, the founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

An…