Human Lung-on-a-Chip Model Demonstrates Potential for Testing Preclinical Influenza Therapeutics

Study in a Sentence: Researchers used human lung-on-a-chip devices to evaluate the preclinical effects of general-purpose flu virus therapeutics, showing that human-based testing excels at predicting efficacy and safety where animal testing fails.

Healthy for Humans: Influenza A viruses have caused multiple global pandemics and lead to tens of millions of illnesses and tens of thousands of deaths in the United States each year. Developing antiviral therapeutics has been limited by poor translational results from animal experimentation due to immune, physiological, and genetic differences. However, testing in nonanimal, human-based lung-on-a-chip systems can enable the development of better therapeutics to improve pandemic preparedness and patient treatment.

Redefining Research: In this study, scientists tested RNA-based antiviral therapies in an Emulate Bio® human lung-on-a-chip system that recreates key features of the human lung, including immune activation. These therapies significantly reduced viral replication in the chip, dampened host inflammatory responses, and showed minimal off-target effects. Because this platform more closely represents how the human lung responds to infection, it provides a more reliable way to evaluate new antiviral drugs before clinical trials compared to animal testing.