/ News
Wyss Institute to Receive up to $37 Million from DARPA to Integrate Multiple Organ-on-Chip Systems to Mimic the Whole Human Body
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University today announced that it has entered into a Cooperative Agreement worth up to $37 million with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to develop an automated instrument that integrates 10 human organs-on-chips to study complex human physiology outside the body. This effort builds on the Institute's past breakthroughs in which Institute researchers engineered microchips that recapitulate the microarchitecture and functions of living organs, such as the lung, heart, and intestine. Each individual organ-on-chip is composed of a clear flexible polymer -- about the size of a computer memory stick -- that contains hollow microfluidic channels lined by living human cells. Because the micro devices are translucent, they provide a window into the inner-workings of human organs without having to invade a living body.
With this new DARPA funding, Institute researchers and a multidisciplinary team of collaborators seek to build 10 different human organs-on-chips, to link them together to more closely mimic whole body physiology, and to engineer an automated instrument that will control fluid flow and cell viability while permitting real-time analysis of complex biochemical functions. As an accurate alternative to traditional animal testing models that often fail to predict human responses, this instrumented "human-on-a-chip" will be used to rapidly assess responses to new drug candidates, providing critical information on their safety and efficacy.
Several U.S. agencies are working together to help safeguard Americans from deliberate chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats, as well as from emerging infectious diseases, by drastically accelerating the drug development process. As an example, DARPA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are actively collaborating to develop cutting edge technologies to predict drug safety. The Wyss project was selected under the DARPA Defense Sciences Office (DSO) Microphysiological Systems Program and will be administered through a Cooperative Agreement by the Army Research Office (ARO) and DARPA.
This unique platform could help ensure that safe and effective therapeutics are identified sooner, and ineffective or toxic ones are rejected early in the development process. As a result, the quality and quantity of new drugs moving successfully through the pipeline and into the clinic may be increased, regulatory decision-making could be better informed, and patient outcomes could be improved.
Jesse Goodman, FDA Chief Scientist and Deputy Commissioner for Science and Public Health, commented that the automated human-on-chip instrument being developed "has the potential to be a better model for determining human adverse responses. FDA looks forward to working with the Wyss Institute in its development of this model that may ultimately be used in therapeutic development."
Wyss Founding Director, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., and Wyss Core Faculty member, Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D., will co-lead this five-year project. Ingber is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). Parker is the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS. The organ-on-chip program will also draw on the Institute's leading scientists and engineers, including Geraldine Hamilton, Ph.D., Anthony Bahinski, Ph.D., and Daniel Levner, Ph.D., who have extensive industrial experience in drug development, safety pharmacology, and systems engineering, to accelerate translation of this technology from the lab into the marketplace where it can best help the people who need it most. Other key collaborators participating in the project include John Wikswo, Ph.D., University Professor of Physics at Vanderbilt University, and Andrzej Przekwas, Ph.D., from CFD Research Corporation.
Source: http://wyss.harvard.edu/viewpressrelease/91/wyss-institute-to-receive-up-to-37-million-from-darpa-to-integrate-multiple-organonchip-systems-to-mimic-the-whole-human-body
/ About us
Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
/ Follow us at:
/ Contact:
For additional information, partnerships and sponsorship, contact:
info@2045.com
Media requesting information and interviews, contact PR@2045.com
LinkedIn
LiveJournal
Google
Twitter
Facebook
Я.ру
ВКонтакте
Mail.ru