A human-airway-on-a-chip for the rapid identification of candidate antiviral therapeutics and prophylactics: a new research paper released from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and recently published on Nature Biomedical Engineering

A study on prophylactics and therapeutics against Influenza A virus and Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has been accepted for publication in the April issue of Nature Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Roberto Plebani, Laboratory of Molecular Medicine (CAST) and Department of Medical, Oral and Biotechnological Sciences appears among the paper’s co-authors. The study shows that microfluidic bronchial-airway-on-a-chip lined by highly differentiated human bronchial-airway epithelium and pulmonary endothelium, can efficiently model viral infection, strain-dependent virulence, cytokine production, and the recruitment of circulating immune cells, thus offering an ideal system for evaluating antiviral candidate drugs.  Experiments performed with this chip, demonstrated high consistence with existing evidence from clinical data, and uncovered the prophylactic and therapeutic anti-SARS-CoV-2 activities of amodiaquine, an antimalarial drug. Thus, the human airway-on-a-chip may accelerate the identification of therapeutics and prophylactics with repurposing potential.

Link to the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-021-00718-9

A human-airway-on-a-chip for the rapid identification of candidate antiviral therapeutics and prophylactics”: a new research paper released from the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and recently published on Nature Biomedical Engineering

Longlong Si , Haiqing Bai, Melissa Rodas, Wuji Cao, Crystal Yuri Oh, Amanda Jiang, Rasmus Moller , Daisy Hoagland, Kohei Oishi3, Shu Horiuchi, Skyler Uh , Daniel Blanco-Melo, Randy A. Albrecht , Wen-Chun Liu, Tristan Jordan, Benjamin E. Nilsson-Payant , Ilona Golynker, Justin Frere , James Logue , Robert Haupt, Marisa McGrath , Stuart Weston, Tian Zhang, Roberto Plebani, Mercy Soong , Atiq Nurani, Seong Min Kim, Danni Y. Zhu, Kambez H. Benam, Girija Goyal, Sarah E. Gilpin, Rachelle Prantil-Baun, Steven P. Gygi , Rani K. Powers, Kenneth E. Carlson, Matthew Frieman , Benjamin R. tenOever  and Donald E. Ingber.

Contacts: Roberto Plebani, ph.: +39 0871 541 464 - email: roberto.plebani@unich.it