Georgia Institute of Technology and Vanderbilt University scientists have collaborated to develop the world's first miniature "lung chip" with an embedded immune system. This chip can actively defend against pathogens like real organs, which is expected to revolutionize disease research models, replace animal experiments, and provide a platform for developing new therapies. The relevant results were published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering. Traditional lung chips are only the size of postage stamps, with microchannels engraved inside and covered with human cells, which can simulate some lung functions. The breakthrough of this study lies in the addition of a functional immune system to these lung chips, enabling the chips to simulate the process of lung response to infection, inflammation, and self repair in a realistic manner. Previously, introducing the immune system into organ chips faced technical bottlenecks: immune cells had a short survival time and it was difficult to simulate their circulation and tissue interaction in the human body. The research team has achieved long-term survival and defense functions of immune cells within the chip through technological optimization. In the influenza virus attack experiment, this chip exhibits a highly similar immune response to the human body: immune cells quickly gather at the infected site, inflammation spreads, defense mechanisms are activated, and the real pathological process is accurately reproduced. For a long time, scientists have found it difficult to directly observe the immune response inside the lungs. This chip has opened up new avenues for preclinical research, helping to deeply analyze the interaction between immune response and viral infection, and evaluate the efficacy of antiviral drugs. In addition, animal models have limitations in lung research, such as the inability of mice to simulate human asthma or specific immune responses. The new lung chip not only can simulate human disease mechanisms more accurately, but also has the potential to significantly reduce reliance on animal experiments. The research team revealed that the new lung chip can be used to study asthma, cystic fibrosis, lung cancer, tuberculosis and other diseases. In the future, they also plan to integrate immune organs and simulate the synergistic effect of the lungs and the systemic immune system. The long-term goal is to achieve personalized medicine - using patients' own cells to build chips and predict the best treatment plan. (New Society)