IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2016 - 43

Karalis continues by explaining how
these mechanical forces are so very relevant for the function of the organs. A
lung needs to expand and contract and
then come back to its original position
for us to breathe efficiently. Muscles attached to bone provide a component that
can be stretched.
"We recreate this human body environment," Karalis says. "We emulate it.
That is where the name of the company
comes from."
Emulate does this through a combination of microengineering, biological
research, medicine, materials science,
design, programming, and data science.
In one lab, scientists in clean-room suits
huddle at incubators performing tissue
culture work. Adjoined to this is the microfabrication lab, where engineers also
in white clean-room suits work to design
and create new chip models.
In the engineering lab, Associate Director of Discovery Chris Hinojosa gives a
demonstration of Emulate's new Human
Emulation System. The system contains
instrumentation, chips, and software apps,
and it is designed to make the technology
plug-and-play and "lab-ready" for use by
a wide range of research and commercial
organizations. For this technology to find
a home in the labs of research institutions
and pharmaceutical companies around
the world, it must be easy to use-so automated and precise-that it provides
standardization around product design,
development, and testing.
Currently, there are chips for the lung,
intestine, kidney, skin, and even a chip for
thrombosis. The chip itself is clear and
about the size of an AA battery. Hold the
chip the long way and you see two different microchannels criss-crossing it, piggybacking each other for a while along
the center line before ending in the opposite corners from which they began. The
cells must be fed in a constant way, and
these two channels supply the goods. This
is where the microengineering comes in.
Where the channels meet in the center,
they are separated by a porous membrane

coated with extracellular matrix proteins
ulate can develop chips with rat cells, dog
from an actual organ. This provides the
cells, or any organisms used in the cliniphysical surface upon which the cells-
cal evaluation of drugs, and it can use this
be they lung, kidney, or skin-attach and
test to replace part of the clinical studies
perform their role. This is the materials
that currently use animal test subjects. "It
science. This, in effect, recreates a human
can give us a hint of how different drugs
physiology that can be used for safety
work in the different species," Karalis
testing new chemicals, the safer design of
says. "Something may be fine for a rat but
new consumer products, developing new
toxic for a human. We can do a comparaorgan models, and studying disease develtive analysis of the behavior, the response
opment or even treatment.
of the cells of different species, and move
Researchers alter parameters to affect
safely to patients."
the tissue in a way that will provide an enKaralis, who has spent years researchvironment susceptible to the development
ing inflammatory diseases, has found
of disease. If you're testing a lung
her years at the Wyss Institute
cell, for example, you might
and Emulate to be fruitful.
introduce a bacteria as
Together, Emulate and
Currently,
one input, and blood in
Merck have already pubthere are
the circulatory system
lished data showing
chips for the
provided by endothethat Emulate's lunglung, intestine,
lial cells as the other.
chip has achieved ackidney, skin, and
When the bacteria
curate modeling of
meet the blood cells
the human lung small
even a chip for
along the porous memairways. They have also
thrombosis.
brane, the white blood cells
made progress into unreact and create an inflammaderstanding the mechanics
tion response. Karalis uses hypoxia
of airway changes that occur as a
as another example. "Say that a person has
result of the respiratory distress caused by
lowered oxygen supply somewhere because
asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary
of a blood clot," she explains. "This hypoxia
disease and have taken steps toward develthat the tissue senses is something that we
oping an improved model for predicting
can emulate."
responses to therapeutic interventions.
Emulate will continue working on
adding new organs and disease models
Progress All Around
to chips, concentrating on more complex
Walking around the Emulate space, one
organs like the heart and brain. The idea
can only think that there must be many
is to scale up. Eventually, the organs-onmore people hiding somewhere to get all
chips technology will be produced on
of this work done. There aren't-but they
such a scale that they will be available to
do have major plans for growth. Emulate
develop targeted, therapeutic treatments
is looking to almost double its size, from
through precision medicine. If we can
40 to 85, by the end of 2016. It also seone day take a person's stem cells and
cured US$28 million in Series B funding
create their own personal chip, we may
in March 2016 to develop its automated
be able to develop combinatory therapies
"lab-ready" product platform.
that not only are highly effective for a parAs it looks now, organs-on-chips could
ticular patient, but also eliminate harsh
be the disruptive technology that changes
side effects elsewhere within the body.
the way we identify, design, and test new
drugs. Since the chips create an environment similar to the in vivo conditions,
-Katianne Williams is a freelance
researchers can predict what effect drugs
writer specializing in the technology field.
may have before they go to humans. Em-

December 2016

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - December 2016