Organ Model: Respiratory System

With over 150 peer-reviewed publications across 30+ organ models, Emulate Organ-Chips are empowering researchers to make game-changing scientific breakthroughs! Download this digest to easily explore all publications related to your field of research, or to just learn more about how the technology itself is developing.

New this quarter:

Fallopian Tube

• Human fallopian tube-on-a-chip for preclinical testing of non-hormonal contraceptives with living human sperm

Intestine

• Probiotic intervention mitigates radiation-induced intestinal injury by alleviating oxidative stress in a human gut-on-a-chip

Lung (Airway)

• Development of an acute inhalation toxicity testing method based on a lung-on-a-chip

Lung (Alveolus)

• Enhanced lung delivery of an immunostimulatory duplex RNA augments the antitumor activity by reshaping systemic cytokine pharmacodynamics

Lung (Alveolus)

• Alveolus-on-a-Chip: A Novel Tool for Modeling Lung Transplant Cold Storage Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury

Placenta

• Simvastatin Restores Uteroplacental Hemodynamics and Trophoblast Function in Obstetric Antiphospholipid Syndrome in a Placenta-on-a-Chip Model

REVIEW ARTICLES:

Female Reproductive Tract

• Female Reproductive Tract Organ-on-Chips: Modeling Barrier Function and Drug Transport

Drug Development

• Human organ-on-a-chip technology as a catalyst for drug discovery

PUBLISHED FROM PRE-PRINT:

Intestine (Colon)

• Human inflammatory bowel disease-on-a-chip for modelling disease progression, cancer initiation and sex-specific effects

Lymph Node

• In vitro recapitulation of intramuscular mRNA vaccination with naive and recall antigens using a human lymphoid follicle chip platform

Vasculature

• Human coronary artery organ-chip with circulating immune cells recapitulates anti-inflammatory effect of pulsatile wall strain

Organ Model: Lung (Airway)

Application: Toxicology

Highlights

Advancing Drug Development by Reducing Reliance on Animal Testing summarizes a hybrid public meeting held on February 26, 2026, where the FDA, patient advocates, regulated industry, and researchers explored strategies to reduce reliance on traditional animal testing. Using inhalation toxicology as a case study, participants discussed how to accelerate progress and align global regulatory expectations without hindering drug development.

The report includes three key areas of focus:

• Addressing how current reliance on rodent inhalation toxicology may delay patient access to critical inhaled therapies
• Exploring FDA-supported New Approach/Alternative Methodologies
• Examining new strategies and weight of evidence approaches to support human safety

Application: Drug Discovery

Highlights

This review highlights Organ-Chips as a more human-relevant preclinical platform that recreates key aspects of organ physiology—including tissue-tissue interfaces, dynamic fluid flow, mechanical forces, and immune interactions—to improve prediction of human drug responses. Unlike conventional cell cultures or animal models, Organ-Chips enable therapeutics to be evaluated using clinically relevant dosing routes and pharmacokinetic profiles, supporting more accurate assessment of efficacy, toxicity, and mechanisms of resistance. The authors also emphasize that combining Organ-Chips with high-throughput screening, functional genomics, and artificial intelligence could accelerate target identification and drug discovery while helping reduce the high rate of clinical trial failures. Although challenges remain around standardization and scalability, the review concludes that Organ-Chips are poised to become an increasingly important tool for drug development and regulatory safety assessment.

Synopsis

Lung transplantation is a life-saving treatment for patients with end-stage lung disease. Despite advances in transplantation technology, however, early graft injury remains a major challenge, underscoring the need for better insight into the biological processes that can compromise transplant success.

In this on-demand webinar, Carl Atkinson, PhD, Professor at Northwestern University, discusses his team’s recent publication describing a novel human Alveolus-on-a-Chip model of lung transplant cold storage ischemia/reperfusion injury. This type of injury can occur when donor lungs are preserved at low temperatures before transplant and then rewarmed and reperfused in the recipient, triggering inflammatory and barrier-disruptive responses that may contribute to poor early graft function.

Using Emulate’s Organ-on-a-Chip technology, Dr. Atkinson’s team recreated key features of donor lung cold storage and reperfusion in a dynamic, human-relevant model of the alveolar-capillary interface. The model combines human alveolar epithelial cells and lung microvascular endothelial cells under an air-liquid interface, vascular-like flow, and cyclic mechanical stretch to better reflect the structure and function of the distal lung.

Dr. Atkinson shares how the model recapitulated clinically relevant hallmarks of lung transplant injury, including transient edema, disruption of epithelial and endothelial barrier markers, proinflammatory chemokine release, adhesion molecule regulation, and distinct epithelial and endothelial gene expression changes. The presentation highlights how the Alveolus-on-a-Chip model can help researchers investigate transplant-associated lung injury mechanisms and support future therapeutic discovery.

Key Learning Points 

• What ischemia/reperfusion injury is and why it matters in the context of donor lung preservation and transplantation
• How a human Alveolus-on-a-Chip model can simulate lung transplant cold storage and reperfusion injury in vitro
• How cold storage ischemia/reperfusion injury impacts alveolar barrier function, endothelial integrity, and fluid accumulation in the chip
• How Organ-on-a-Chip models may accelerate mechanistic research and therapeutic screening in lung transplantation

Synopsis

Organ-on-a-Chip technology is emerging as a powerful New Approach Methodology (NAM) for drug development, driven by the need for more human-relevant and scalable experimental models. As these systems move toward broader adoption, a key challenge remains: generating consistent, interpretable data that supports confident experimental and translational decision-making.

This webinar examines how imaging and AI-driven analysis workflows enable Organ-Chip studies to scale from innovation to routine application. Speakers begin with an overview of Organ-on-a-Chip technology and its role in addressing translational gaps in drug discovery, highlighting how Liver-Chips are being evaluated in collaboration with regulatory agencies for better prediction of drug-induced liver injury.

The session then explores how the newly released AVA™ Emulation System enables scalable Organ-Chip experimentation through an integrated system for incubation, microfluidic delivery, and routine imaging. Paired with AI-driven analysis, brightfield image data can be used to automate quality control by monitoring chip health, morphology, and assay performance over time across large studies.

To complete the workflow, post-study high-resolution imaging is applied to evaluate more complex biological markers, including toxicology-relevant endpoints and drug uptake. These datasets are paired with advanced analysis techniques that translate imaging data into quantitative, biologically meaningful insights.

Attendees will gain a practical understanding of how unified imaging and analysis strategies—spanning routine QC through advanced interrogation—support scalability, reproducibility, and alignment with evolving regulatory expectations for Organ-Chips and other NAM-based drug development.

Organ Model: Lung

Applications: Immunology & Inflammation

Highlights

This study developed a more realistic in vitro model of lung transplant cold storage ischemia/reperfusion injury (CS-IRI) using a lung alveolus-on-a-chip system. Human primary alveolar epithelial cells and human lung microvascular endothelial cells were cultured under 3D microfluidic air-liquid interface conditions with physiological flow and stretch. Chips were perfused with Perfadex and stored at 4°C for 6 h, then reperfused for 24 h at 37°C to simulate CS-IRI. Compared with control chips, CS-IRI caused loss of barrier function, increased inflammatory chemokines and adhesion molecules, and significant changes in 42 epithelial and 49 endothelial cell genes (P < 0.01). This model may improve understanding of CS-IRI after lung transplantation.

Products Used In This Publication

Organ Model: Lung Cancer (Alveolus)

Application: Cancer, Immunotherapy

Highlights

In this study, researchers used a human Lung Cancer-Chip to evaluate the therapeutic activity of a lung-targeted lipid nanoparticle (LungLNP) delivering an immunostimulatory duplex RNA (RNA-1) in a physiologically relevant human lung tumor microenvironment. The Lung Cancer-Chip recreated the alveolar interface by co-culturing human alveolar epithelial cells, pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells, and GFP-labeled A549 lung cancer cells under vascular perfusion, enabling intravenous-like dosing through the endothelial channel. Treatment with LungLNP/RNA-1 produced dose-dependent inhibition of tumor growth, stimulated secretion of interferons and pro-inflammatory cytokines, and revealed preferential uptake of the therapeutic by endothelial cells. These findings demonstrate the utility of Organ-Chips for evaluating targeted RNA therapeutics, elucidating mechanisms of cellular uptake and innate immune activation, and validating anti-tumor efficacy in a human-relevant tissue model.

Products Used In This Publication

Organ Model: Lung

Applications: Immunology & Inflammation, Cell Therapy

Highlights

This publication establishes a novel Lung-Chip ARDS model for mechanistic and translational evaluation of cell therapies in human-relevant lung tissue. The ARDS model was created by co-culturing NHBE bronchial epithelial cells and HUVEC endothelial cells under flow, inducing injury with LPS in the epithelial channel, and then delivering either primed MSCs or dexamethasone through the vascular channel to compare their effects. The study shows that primed MSCs not only restore endothelial barrier function to near-control levels but also uniquely activate pro-angiogenic pathways and tip-like endothelial programs without signs of uncontrolled proliferation, suggesting they may offer a safer, regenerative alternative to dexamethasone.

Products Used In This Publication

Organ Model: Lung

Applications: Infectious Disease, Immunology & Inflammation

Highlights

This study demonstrates how an organoid-based Lung-on-a-Chip model can be used to investigate ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) and the impact of mechanical forces on disease severity. Using the Emulate Alveolus Lung-Chip, researchers recreated key features of the human alveolar microenvironment to evaluate epithelial differentiation, barrier function, and susceptibility to Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection under physiological and injurious stretch conditions.

Products Used In This Publication

Organ Model: Lung (Alveolus)

Applications: Infectious Disease

Highlights

An Alveolus Lung-Chip was used to create a human pneumonia-on-a-chip model that recapitulates key features of ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), including an air–liquid interface, vascular flow, and cyclic mechanical stretch. The chip supported co-culture of human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells with either primary or organoid-derived alveolar epithelial cells, enabling differentiation into AT1- and AT2-like cells and formation of a tight epithelial–endothelial barrier. By applying physiological (5%) or hyperphysiological (10%) cyclic strain, the authors modeled mechanical ventilation–like forces and showed that higher strain impaired barrier integrity and broadly altered gene expression. Upon infection with Pseudomonas aeruginosa, increased mechanical strain exacerbated bacterial translocation and barrier disruption, demonstrating the chip’s ability to model early, force-dependent mechanisms of VAP.

Products Used In This Publication