NASA ScienceCasts: A Chip off the Old Block

1. 0:06A Chip off the Old Block -- presented by Science@NASA The expression “chip off the old block” has taken on new meaning.
2. 0:19Scientists are using cells and tissue from the human body to create living 3D versions of human organs within see-through structures.
3. 0:29These innovative ‘tissue chips,’ about the size of a thumb-drive,
4. 0:34hold great promise for improving drug testing, researching diseases, personalizing medical treatment, and more.
5. 0:41A few will soon be headed to the International Space Station (ISS),
6. 0:45through a collaboration between the National Institutes for Health (NIH) and the ISS National Laboratory, in partnership with NASA.
7. 0:54Tissue chips can host different cell and tissue types and mimic the intricate biological functions
8. 0:59and responses of full-sized human organs such as the lungs, liver, and heart.
9. 1:06Cells grown in tissue chips behave more like cells of a real organ than do cells grown in static cell culture dishes.
10. 1:14That’s partly because the chips can be interwoven with miniscule channels
11. 1:18lined with thousands of living human cells through which air, blood, nutrients, medications, and the like can flow.
12. 1:27Researchers can even introduce a disease like cancer into a tissue chip to study disease progression.
13. 1:33The space station is especially well-suited to advance research in this technology.
14. 1:39Lucie Low is the Scientific Program Manager for the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at NIH.
15. 1:49“Microgravity causes changes in human physiology that directly translate to disease pathology here on Earth.
16. 1:55In a couple of weeks in microgravity, we can model something that might take 10 or 15 years here on Earth
17. 2:00to become even clinically relevant. So we can start understanding and uncovering disease pathologies much faster.”
18. 2:06Other tissue-chip-in-space study areas include respiratory system immune response, kidney function,
19. 2:13blood brain barrier, musculoskeletal diseases such as osteoporosis, and immune system aging.
20. 2:21Insights from these studies could help researchers understand diseases better, design treatments, and streamline testing of new candidate drugs.
21. 2:30In the future, tissue chips could also advance precision medicine -- customized health care
22. 2:36with disease treatment and prevention that takes into account a patient’s genes, environment, and body.
23. 2:43Every individual reacts differently to cancers, genetic disorders, and infections.
24. 2:49“Using tissue chips is a way to understand, in a tightly controllable model system, exactly what's happening to a specific person.”
25. 2:57“We could use tissue chips to pinpoint what it is about a particular group
26. 3:02that's making their cancers act in a particular way towards a particular drug,
27. 3:06or what kind of drug might be more useful for one population than another.”
28. 3:11Scientists are even working on a ‘human-on-a-chip,’
29. 3:15in which tissue chips for various organs will be linked together to mimic whole body physiology.
30. 3:21Researchers could then test potential effects of a substance like a drug across the entire body before testing in humans.
31. 3:28“Essentially you throw all these cells together and provide them with the nutrients they need to ‘do their thing.’
32. 3:35It’s literally like taking a little bit of you, putting it into a ‘home away from home,’
33. 3:38letting the cells chat with each other, and looking at how they respond to different stresses and different drugs.”
34. 3:49Science truth can be stranger than science fiction.
35. 3:51To learn about science being performed on the space station, go to www.nasa.gov/iss-science
36. 3:59For more on scientific advancements both on and off Earth, visit science.nasa.gov.

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