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‘Person-on-a-chip'—U of T biomedical engineers create lab-grown heart and liver tissue for drug testing and more

Researchers at the U of T Institute of Biomaterials & Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) have developed a new way of growing realistic human tissues outside the body. Their “person-on-a-chip” technology, called AngioChip, is a powerful platform for discovering and testing new drugs, and could eventually be used to repair or replace damaged organs. Professor Milica Radisic, graduate student Boyang Zhang and their collaborators are among those research groups around the world racing to find ways to grow human tissues in the lab, under conditions that mimic a real person’s body. They have developed unique methods for manufacturing small, intricate scaffolds for individual cells to grow on. These artificial environments produce cells and tissues that resemble the real thing more closely than those grown lying flat in a petri dish.”

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