By Kat Procyk
Photography by Rayni Shiring, University of Pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh announced today that it has been selected to receive a $24.4 million award over five years from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a component of the U.S. Department of War. The funding will support efforts to address biological threats, particularly viruses, by advancing human-relevant experimental systems that enable researchers to better understand how infections impact the body and respond to treatment.
These organ-on-a-chip platforms are small, engineered systems, roughly the size of a USB drive, populated with living human cells and designed to replicate key aspects of human tissue structure and function outside the body.
The research will integrate multiple organ-on-a-chip systems representing different tissues to create a more complete view of how infections affect the body. By capturing interactions across tissues, the platform enables controlled, human-relevant studies of disease processes that are difficult to observe using conventional approaches.
“This work is focused on building a human-relevant platform to study how viral infections progress and how the body responds,” said Kambez H. Benam, associate professor of medicine, School of Medicine, and of bioengineering, Swanson School of Engineering, who is the principal investigator. “It allows us to bridge the gap between simplified laboratory models and more complex biological systems in a way that can inform future drug development.”
To strengthen confidence in the system, researchers will compare findings from these models with existing human data, helping ensure that the platform reflects real-world biological responses.
“In addition to understanding how infections affect the body, this approach provides a way to evaluate potential therapeutic strategies earlier and more efficiently,” Benam said.
Subawards for the project include Pneumax, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Effort sponsored by the U.S. Government through the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium.
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