Key Points
Traditionally, biological research and development of drugs have relied on animals to understand and assess whether new drugs would have the desired result in the human body without producing any side effects..
Similarly, organs-on-chip are AA-battery-sized chips lined with human cells that recapitulate certain elements of function and activity characteristics of a human organ.. With the help of these technologies, scientists can re-create critical parts of an organ system to assess the effects and side effects of potential new drugs..
These methodologies are being touted as the next frontier of drug development and provide a window into the workings of a human organ.. To propel their developments, several countries have announced ambitious policy and funding initiatives.NIHs recent programmebuilds on $100 millionin fundinginitiated in2012, which led to the development of a lung-on-a-chip model to study respiratory diseases includingCovid-19, and miniature heart andkidney models used to study organ damage and disease...
The recentlyreleasedNational Policy on Research and Development in Pharma and Med Tech sectors in India is designed to support self-reliance and rapid development of innovative drugs, and it would make sense to incorporate the push for non-animal technologies under the ambit of this policy...
To enable the development of these emerging methods, a policy centre,theCentre for Predictive Human Model Systems, wasestablishedat the Atal Incubation Centre(AIC) at the Centre forCellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in collaboration with Humane Society International/India..
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