Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are teaming up to provide $32 million for development of a technology platform that will mimic human physiological systems in the laboratory, using an array of integrated, interchangeable engineered human tissue constructs - a human body on a chip.

The new program is called “Barrier-Immune-Organ: MIcrophysiology, Microenvironment Engineered TIssue Construct Systems” (BIO-MIMETICS) and includes the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT, the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, MatTek Corp. and Zyoxel Ltd.

The BIO-MIMETICS program will combine the technologies to create a microfluidic platform that can incorporate up to 10 individual engineered human microphysiological organ system modules in an interacting circuit. The modules will be designed to mimic the functions of specific organ systems representing a broad spectrum of human tissues, including the circulatory, endocrine, gastrointestinal, immune, integumentary, musculoskeletal, nervous, reproductive, respiratory and urinary systems.

The goal of the program is to create a versatile platform capable of accurately predicting drug and vaccine efficacy, toxicity, and pharmacokinetics in preclinical testing. The BIO-MIMETICS team anticipates that the platform will be suitable for use in regulatory review, amenable to rapid translation to the biopharmaceutical research community, and adaptable for integration of future technologies such as advances in stem cell technologies and personalized medicine. 

BIO-MIMETICS human body on a chip
The BIO-MIMETICS program will incorporate up to 10 engineered human “tissue chip” modules in an interacting circuit to model human responses to drugs and vaccines a laboratory setting.
Image: Griffith Lab/Draper

The BIO-MIMETICS proposal was funded as part of the Microphysiological Systems (MPS) program at DARPA, and will be led by MIT professor Linda Griffith in collaboration with MIT professors Steven Tannenbaum, Darrell Irvine, Paula Hammond, Eric Alm and Douglas Lauffenburger. Jeffrey Borenstein and Shankar Sundaram will lead the work at Draper Laboratory, Patrick Hayden will lead the work at MatTek, and David Hughes will lead the work at Zyoxel.  

A cooperative agreement worth up to $6.25 million from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at NIH will support a complementary research initiative at MIT and Draper Laboratory, in collaboration with professors Alan Wells, Donna Stolz and Raman Venkataramanan at the University of Pittsburgh. The aim of this project is to model cancer metastasis therapies using engineered human tissue constructs, with a goal of adapting this work to the integrated BIO-MIMETICS platform.