Post by Wyss Institute at Harvard University

"To my knowledge, this is the first model that has recapitulated in vitro [inflammatory bowel disease] exacerbations that pregnant women with IBD often can experience. Perhaps even more importantly, we showed that our system enables studying the earliest stages of cancer formation within human tissues growing in an organ-relevant context in vitro," explains Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D. Inflammatory bowel disease affects about 1.6 million Americans, many of whom cannot be effectively treated. This is mostly due to a lack of understanding of what exactly causes the increased inflammation, fibrosis, and compromised intestinal barrier that underlie this disease and its symptoms, many of which are stronger in women than men. Wyss researchers created donor-specific microfluidic Colon Chips that replicate major hallmarks of IBD in vitro in an unprecedented way. https://lnkd.in/eFmVkkQf