Organs-on-chip to treat autoimmune diseases: #toeachonetheappropriatemedicine
Dr. Giuseppe Cappellano, researcher at UPO-DISS in the Immunomics laboratory led by Professor Annalisa Chiocchetti, is responsible for the project entitled ''Autologous synovia-on-chip: a sustainable preclinical model for drug discovery and clinical trials on chip for Rheumatoid arthritis'', which aims to develop a synovial-on-chip for personalized medicine in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
RA is an autoimmune disease (AD) in which the immune system, whose role is to defend us against pathogens, makes a mistake and attacks out joint, recognizing them as foreign. ADs are constantly increasing, and there is the necessity to identify specific therapies ad hoc for patients.
Organs-on-chip represent one of the news frontiers of modern medicine and are based on the idea of recreating a miniature human organ on a small chip.
The different tissues that constitute it are connected by a fluidic system made up of small tubes that allow the arrival of nutrients and drugs to the tissues. Despite the fact that today the drug portfolio for the treatment of autoimmune diseases is extensive, not all patients respond to therapies, and for clinicians it is not easy to identify the ''right'' one immediately.
Therefore, the patient who does not respond to drug ''1'' is treated with the drug ''2'', etc. Finding the right drug not only represents a stressful situation for the patient but also carries the risk of adverse reaction.
One solution could be to recreate in the laboratory on a small chip the tissue affected in the MA, constructed from the patient's cells (isolated from biopsies) and then treat it with various drugs: once the ''ideal'' candidate is identified, it can ben administered to the patient.
The project I'm working on, continues Dr. Cappellano, is to recreate a synovium on a chip that, once ''inflamed'', will be treated with the different drugs available for RA.
This project relies on the advice and collaboration with the start-up AI-TWIN (https://www.aitwin.it/) whose mission is to develop next generation clinical trials on chip.
