Medicine tailored to each person.

Lungs on a chip

While hospitals still treat respiratory diseases with general methods, researchers have just taken a step toward tailor-made medicine for each person. Scientists at the Francis Creek Institute in London, in collaboration with the Swiss company Alviolics, created the first functional lung-on-a-chip model built with cells from a single individual.

In other words, a living miniaturized lung that carries the genetic identity of a specific person and breathes. The device reproduces the lung alveoli, small structures where oxygen enters the blood and where many infections begin. The chip expands and contracts rhythmically to imitate real human breathing. This seems like a technical detail, but without this movement the cells do not behave like a real lung, they do not form essential microstructures for respiratory function.

The advance was possible thanks to reprogrammed stem cells capable of generating human tissues genetically compatible with the original donor. Until now, many models mixed cells from different sources, creating useful but biologically imperfect systems. Now, for the first time, scientists can observe how a specific person's body reacts to a specific disease, and the first target was an old enemy, tuberculosis.

The researchers added microphages, defense cells from the same donor and introduced the tuberculosis bacteria into the chip, what emerged was an invisible battle filmed in real time. observed the formation of agglomerated necrotic nuclei of dead immune cells 5 days before the total collapse of the lung barrier, that is, early signs of the disease that usually go unnoticed in the human body.

This can change everything because diseases like tuberculosis evolve slowly, months can pass between the initial infection and the first symptoms. Understanding this silent phase means saving time and saving time, plus technology reduces reliance on animal testing that often fails to reproduce real human physiology – mice don't breathe like we do or get sick like we do.

In the future, doctors could test antibiotics, antivirals or chemotherapies first on the patient's own organ-on-chip before applying them to it.