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We have a global health challenge

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in our hands today,

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and that is that the way we currently

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discover and develop new drugs

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is too costly, takes far too long,

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and it fails more often than it succeeds.

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It really just isn't working, and that means

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that patients that badly need new therapies

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are not getting them,

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and diseases are going untreated.

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We seem to be spending more and more money.

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So for every billion dollars we spend in R&D,

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we're getting less drugs approved into the market.

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More money, less drugs. Hmm.

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So what's going on here?

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Well, there's a multitude of factors at play,

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but I think one of the key factors

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is that the tools that we currently have

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available to test whether a drug is going to work,

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whether it has efficacy,

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or whether it's going to be safe

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before we get it into human clinical trials,

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are failing us. They're not predicting

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what's going to happen in humans.

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And we have two main tools available

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at our disposal.

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They are cells in dishes and animal testing.

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Now let's talk about the first one, cells in dishes.

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So, cells are happily functioning in our bodies.

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We take them and rip them out

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of their native environment,
throw them in one of these dishes,

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and expect them to work.

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Guess what. They don't.

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They don't like that environment

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because it's nothing like

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what they have in the body.

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What about animal testing?

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Well, animals do and can provide

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extremely useful information.

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They teach us about what happens

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in the complex organism.

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We learn more about the biology itself.

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However, more often than not,

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animal models fail to predict
what will happen in humans

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when they're treated with a particular drug.

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So we need better tools.

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We need human cells,

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but we need to find a way to keep them happy

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outside the body.

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Our bodies are dynamic environments.

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We're in constant motion.

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Our cells experience that.

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They're in dynamic environments in our body.

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They're under constant mechanical forces.

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So if we want to make cells happy

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outside our bodies,

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we need to become cell architects.

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We need to design, build and engineer

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a home away from home for the cells.

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And at the Wyss Institute,

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we've done just that.

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We call it an organ-on-a-chip.

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And I have one right here.

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It's beautiful, isn't it?
But it's pretty incredible.

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Right here in my hand is a breathing, living

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human lung on a chip.

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And it's not just beautiful.

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It can do a tremendous amount of things.

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We have living cells in that little chip,

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cells that are in a dynamic environment

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interacting with different cell types.

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There's been many people

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trying to grow cells in the lab.

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They've tried many different approaches.

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They've even tried to grow
little mini-organs in the lab.

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We're not trying to do that here.

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We're simply trying to recreate

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in this tiny chip

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the smallest functional unit

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that represents the biochemistry,

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the function and the mechanical strain

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that the cells experience in our bodies.

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So how does it work? Let me show you.

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We use techniques from the computer chip

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manufacturing industry

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to make these structures at a scale

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relevant to both the cells and their environment.

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We have three fluidic channels.

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In the center, we have a porous, flexible membrane

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on which we can add human cells

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from, say, our lungs,

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and then underneath, they had capillary cells,

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the cells in our blood vessels.

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And we can then apply mechanical forces to the chip

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that stretch and contract the membrane,

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so the cells experience the same mechanical forces

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that they did when we breathe.

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And they experience them how they did in the body.

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There's air flowing through the top channel,

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and then we flow a liquid that contains nutrients

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through the blood channel.

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Now the chip is really beautiful,

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but what can we do with it?

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We can get incredible functionality

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inside these little chips.

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Let me show you.

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We could, for example, mimic infection,

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where we add bacterial cells into the lung.

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then we can add human white blood cells.

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White blood cells are our body's defense

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against bacterial invaders,

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and when they sense this
inflammation due to infection,

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they will enter from the blood into the lung

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and engulf the bacteria.

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Well now you're going to see this happening

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live in an actual human lung on a chip.

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We've labeled the white blood cells
so you can see them flowing through,

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and when they detect that infection,

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they begin to stick.

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They stick, and then they try to go into the lung

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side from blood channel.

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And you can see here, we can actually visualize

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a single white blood cell.

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It sticks, it wiggles its way through

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between the cell layers, through the pore,

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comes out on the other side of the membrane,

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and right there, it's going to engulf the bacteria

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labeled in green.

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In that tiny chip, you just witnessed

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one of the most fundamental responses

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our body has to an infection.

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It's the way we respond to -- an immune response.

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It's pretty exciting.

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Now I want to share this picture with you,

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not just because it's so beautiful,

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but because it tells us an enormous
amount of information

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about what the cells are doing within the chips.

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It tells us that these cells

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from the small airways in our lungs,

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actually have these hairlike structures

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that you would expect to see in the lung.

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These structures are called cilia,

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and they actually move the mucus out of the lung.

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Yeah. Mucus. Yuck.

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But mucus is actually very important.

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Mucus traps particulates, viruses,

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potential allergens,

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and these little cilia move

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and clear the mucus out.

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When they get damaged, say,

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by cigarette smoke for example,

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they don't work properly,
and they can't clear that mucus out.

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And that can lead to diseases such as bronchitis.

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Cilia and the clearance of mucus

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are also involved in awful diseases like cystic fibrosis.

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But now, with the functionality
that we get in these chips,

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we can begin to look

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for potential new treatments.

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We didn't stop with the lung on a chip.

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We have a gut on a chip.

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You can see one right here.

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And we've put intestinal human cells

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in a gut on a chip,

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and they're under constant peristaltic motion,

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this trickling flow through the cells,

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and we can mimic many of the functions

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that you actually would expect to see

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in the human intestine.

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Now we can begin to create models of diseases

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such as irritable bowel syndrome.

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This is a disease that affects

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a large number of individuals.

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It's really debilitating,

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and there aren't really many good treatments for it.

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Now we have a whole pipeline

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of different organ chips

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that we are currently working on in our labs.

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Now, the true power of this technology, however,

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really comes from the fact

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that we can fluidically link them.

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There's fluid flowing across these cells,

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so we can begin to interconnect

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multiple different chips together

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to form what we call a virtual human on a chip.

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Now we're really getting excited.

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We're not going to ever recreate 
a whole human in these chips,

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but what our goal is is to be able to recreate

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sufficient functionality

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so that we can make better predictions

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of what's going to happen in humans.

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For example, now we can begin to explore

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what happens when we put
a drug like an aerosol drug.

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Those of you like me who have asthma,
when you take your inhaler,

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we can explore how that drug comes into your lungs,

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how it enters the body,

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how it might affect, say, your heart.

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Does it change the beating of your heart?

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Does it have a toxicity?

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Does it get cleared by the liver?

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Is it metabolized in the liver?

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Is it excreted in your kidneys?

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We can begin to study the dynamic

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response of the body to a drug.

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This could really revolutionize

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and be a game changer

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for not only the pharmaceutical industry,

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but a whole host of different industries,

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including the cosmetics industry.

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We can potentially use the skin on a chip

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that we're currently developing in the lab

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to test whether the ingredients in those products

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that you're using are actually 
safe to put on your skin

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without the need for animal testing.

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We could test the safety

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of chemicals that we are exposed to

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on a daily basis in our environment,

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such as chemicals in regular household cleaners.

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We could also use the organs on chips

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for applications in bioterrorism

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or radiation exposure.

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We could use them to learn more about

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diseases such as ebola

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or other deadly diseases such as SARS.

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Organs on chips could also change

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the way we do clinical trials in the future.

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Right now, the average participant

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in a clinical trial is that: average.

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Tends to be middle aged, tends to be female.

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You won't find many clinical trials

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in which children are involved,

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yet every day, we give children medications,

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and the only safety data we have on that drug

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is one that we obtained from adults.

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Children are not adults.

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They may not respond in the same way adults do.

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There are other things like genetic differences

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in populations

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that may lead to at-risk populations

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that are at risk of having an adverse drug reaction.

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Now imagine if we could take cells
from all those different populations,

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put them on chips,

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and create populations on a chip.

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This could really change the way

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we do clinical trials.

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And this is the team and the people
that are doing this.

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We have engineers, we have cell biologists,

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we have clinicians, all working together.

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We're really seeing something quite incredible

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at the Wyss Institute.

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It's really a convergence of disciplines,

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where biology is influencing the way we design,

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the way we engineer, the way we build.

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It's pretty exciting.

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We're establishing important industry collaborations

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such as the one we have with a company

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that has expertise in large-scale
digital manufacturing.

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They're going to help us make,

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instead of one of these,

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millions of these chips,

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so that we can get them into the hands

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of as many researchers as possible.

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And this is key to the potential of that technology.

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Now let me show you our instrument.

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This is an instrument that our engineers

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are actually prototyping right now in the lab,

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and this instrument is going to give us

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the engineering controls that we're going to require

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in order to link 10 or more organ chips together.

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It does something else that's very important.

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It creates an easy user interface.

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So a cell biologist like me can come in,

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take a chip, put it in a cartridge

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like the prototype you see there,

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put the cartridge into the machine

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just like you would a C.D.,

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and away you go.

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Plug and play. Easy.

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Now, let's imagine a little bit

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what the future might look like

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if I could take your stem cells

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and put them on a chip,

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or your stem cells and put them on a chip.

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It would be a personalized chip just for you.

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Now all of us in here are individuals,

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and those individual differences mean

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that we could react very differently

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and sometimes in unpredictable ways to drugs.

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I myself, a couple of years back,
had a really bad headache,

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just couldn't shake it, thought, 
"Well, I'll try something different."

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I took some Advil. Fifteen minutes later,

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I was on my way to the emergency room

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with a full-blown asthma attack.

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Now, obviously it wasn't fatal,

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but unfortunately, some of these

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adverse drug reactions can be fatal.

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So how do we prevent them?

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Well, we could imagine one day

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having Geraldine on a chip,

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having Danielle on a chip,

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having you on a chip.

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Personalized medicine. Thank you.

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(Applause)