Draper Achieves Immune Cell Recirculation
Scientists at Draper have successfully produced a sustained, 24-hour recirculation of primary human immune cells in a high-throughput microphysiological system (MPS). This achievement in "organ-on-a-chip" technology could improve the preclinical testing of new drugs and immunotherapies.
- The specific technology platform used is called PREDICT-96, which is designed for high-throughput testing, meaning it can run experiments on 96 organ models simultaneously. - The immune cells recirculated were primary human neutrophils, a type of white blood cell notoriously difficult to work with because they typically survive for less than two hours in lab systems; Draper maintained over 90% viability for up to 24 hours. - A key challenge in drug development is that animal models are often poor predictors of how a drug will work in humans, leading to a clinical trial failure rate of about 90%. "Organ-on-a-chip" systems aim to create more accurate, human-relevant models to improve this success rate. - To keep the delicate neutrophils alive, Draper's engineering team modified the system's pump controller and fluid dynamics to reduce the velocity and physical stress (shear forces) that were harming the cells. - Elizabeth Wiellette, a Ph.D. and Lab Fellow at Draper, noted that this breakthrough will enable more accurate modeling of the human immune response in injury, infection, and disease. - The project is an example of a "New Approach Methodology" (NAM), a term for technologies that can replace, reduce, or refine animal testing, a key goal of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). - This work builds on Draper's broader efforts in immuno-oncology, which include developing microfluidic devices to study the interactions between immune cells and patient tumor fragments in real-time.
