Lung-on-a-Chip with Immune Cells Mimics Real Disease Response

Understanding how the human lung responds to infection is a complex challenge. A team from Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt University has created a lung-on-a-chip that includes a functioning immune system, offering a new way to study respiratory diseases and test treatments. This miniature device contains living human cells arranged to replicate the structure and behavior of a real lung, and it can circulate immune cells that respond to pathogens in real time.

When researchers introduced a severe influenza virus, the chip reacted with inflammation and immune cell activation, closely mirroring human biology. This allows scientists to observe how lungs respond to disease and healing processes with greater accuracy than traditional animal models or static cell cultures.

The chip could be used to study conditions such as asthma, cystic fibrosis, and lung cancer. It also opens the possibility of creating personalized versions using a patient’s own cells to predict how they might respond to specific treatments. This could lead to more targeted therapies and reduce the need for trial-and-error approaches in clinical care.

The research team emphasized that the chip supports efforts to reduce animal testing while improving the reliability of drug development. It offers a dynamic and scalable platform for studying lung biology in a controlled environment. The work was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering and supported by several research foundations.

This innovation represents a major advance in organ-on-a-chip technology. By integrating immune function into the model, researchers can explore complex interactions between pathogens, lung tissue, and the immune system. It may also help accelerate the development of treatments for emerging respiratory diseases and improve outcomes for patients with chronic lung conditions.