Human Gut Microbiome On A Chip

Posted: 7/21/2019

The Wyss Institute at Harvard University may have delivered a momentous breakthrough by developing a very realistic, viable human gut microbiome on a chip. If confirmed, this has great potential for further and rapid medical progress!

“A research team ... has developed a ... ‘organ-on-a-chip’ (Organ Chip) microfluidic culture technology. ... now able to culture a stable complex human microbiome in direct contact with a vascularized human intestinal epithelium for at least five days in a human Intestine Chip in which an oxygen gradient is established that provides high levels to the endothelium and epithelium while maintaining hypoxic conditions in the intestinal lumen inhabited by the commensal bacteria. Their “anaerobic Intestine Chip” stably maintained a microbial diversity similar to that in human feces over days and a protective physiological barrier that was formed by human intestinal tissue. The study is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.” (S1; emphasis added)

Sources (S):

1. Human gut microbiome physiology can now be studied in vitro using Organ Chip technology/Anaerobic human Intestine Chip supports complex gut microbiome under low oxygen, enabling direct investigations of health and disease-related human-microbiome interactions (5/13/19)