NEW YORK ABU DHABI UNIVERSITY IS FULFILLING SDG GOALS OF IMPROVING HUMAN AND ANIMAL LIFE

Dr. Kenichiro Kamei

New York University Associate Professor of Biology/Bionegineering

Two of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDG) that make up the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development are related to healthcare and wildlife conservation. These two goals are also among the top priorities for the UAE, and researchers at New York Abu Dhabi University are developing a technology that can enhance healthcare, and longevity, for both humans and animals.

SDG goal 3 for example aspires to ensure health and well-being for all, including a bold commitment to end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other communicable diseases by 2030. It also aims to achieve universal health coverage and provide access to safe and effective medicines and vaccines for all. Supporting research and development for vaccines is an essential part of this process as well as expanding access to affordable medicines.

In addition, SDG Goal 15 “Life on Land” includes a commitment to halt biodiversity loss that is also applicable to marine species; by taking urgent action to end poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna, and address both demand and supply of illegal wildlife products.

How does Organ on a chip support SDG goals

This is where the research of Ken-Ichiro Kamei, Associate Professor, Programs of Biology and Bioengineering, New York University Abu Dhabi comes in. He has developed a chip named “Organ on a chip” to mimic the physiological and pathological conditions of living systems in vitro.

To accomplish this goal, he is taking an interdisciplinary approach integrating stem cell biology, chemical biology, physics, micro/nanotechnology, and materials science.

He is now applying his research strategy for regenerative medicine and drug discovery for humans and endangered animals to achieve proper global healthcare. This is significant today given that drug discovery is now facing issues such as high development costs (over $10 billion US per drug) and long development times (more than 10 years), as well as serious side effects occurring during clinical trials or after introduction into the market.

The “organ on a chip” which could become the “body on a chip” using human cells, is promising for recapitulating human physiological conditions, it is highly desirable in investigations of the side effects of drugs to integrate more than one type of tissue using a designed circulatory system.

One of the examples where it has been used is with the development of a microfluidic device—an Integrated Heart/ Cancer on a Chip (iHCC), using human healthy heart cells (hCMs) and liver cancer cells (HepG2) to recapitulate the side effects of an anti-cancer drug, doxorubicin (DXR), to achieve individual cultures of cells from different tissues on a single device with three sets of artificial blood circulation loops, microfabrication technology for microvalves and a pump provides accurate fluid operation. Using improved soft lithography adopting numerical optimization simulation, the microfluidic device was fabricated with on-chip integration of pneumatic valves and a peristaltic micropump establishing precision fluid flow.

The “organ on a chip” which could become the “body on a chip” using human cells, is promising for recapitulating human physiological conditions.

The iHCC developed allows modeling of the side effects of DXR on heart cells caused by the production of toxic metabolites (doxorubicinol; DXRol) by HepG2 cells and the delivery of DXRol to heart cells via the circulation loop. The findings open the door towards the development of a “Body-on-a-Chip.

Kamei states, “Organs-on-a-chip is developed to make miniorgans, such as the brain and liver, in a chip and understand their communications via artificial blood circulation. It is useful to understand diseases and develop new drugs and treatments to improve our healthcare without the use of experimental animals.”

Bodies on a chip

Kamei has come to the UAE and specifically New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) to accomplish the goal of developing “Bodies on a chip’.

As he explained, “I have studied stem cells, which can be almost any kind of our organs. In parallel, I also studied micro/ nanotechnology to make miniaturized objects and fluidic paths. I always considered how these two studies could be combined to have a new breakthrough. Then, I came up with the idea of rebuilding mini-organs or mini-humans in a chip by combining these studies.

He adds, “I started about 10 years ago. I had a chance to visit NYUAD a couple of years ago where I found UAE’s NYUAD has excellent biologists and bioengineers to work with, and realized that this was the great place to accomplish my goal to establish organs/bodies on a chip.”

“Bodies on a chip” serve as proxies for living beings, alleviating the need for lab animals, inspiring new cures for rare diseases and even offering a way to resuscitate dying species.

While traditional biochemical experiments carried out on lab plates are static and isolated, the chips Kamei uses contain an interconnected system of channels, valves, and pumps that allow for more complex interactions – to the point that they can mimic a living system. Recognizing the potential such chips have for revolutionizing medical research, in 2016 the World Economic Forum named “organs-on-chips” in their top 10 emerging technologies of the year. but while those specialized chips mimic particular tissues or organs, Kamei and his colleagues aim to eventually mimic whole animals. Kamei explains, “So one reason we developed this is so we wouldn’t have to use experimental animals for testing drugs, while the other reason is that we can develop stem cells from endangered animals and use them for organs on a chip.” iPS cells can proliferate many, many times outside of the body, whereas other types of stem cells cannot. iPS cells could also be used to synthesize lab-grown meat, for example, alleviating inhumane treatment of livestock and environmentally harmful side effects from farming, or to create endangered species products that satisfy market demand without killing wildlife.

To operate the chips, he adds various types of cell tissue into six chambers connected to microchannels and then hooks the chip’s pneumatic micropumps up to a controller to create circulation. This gives him and others the ability to test the efficacy and side effects of new drugs, to design personalized medicine for individuals based on their cell cultures, and to better understand the underpinnings of disease.

In 2016 the World Economic Forum named “organs-on-chips” in their top 10 emerging technologies of the year.

This is also applicable to humans. In one experiment, for example, Kamei and his colleagues loaded a chip with healthy heart cells and cancerous liver cells. They then added doxorubicin, an anti-cancer drug known to cause toxic side effects on the heart but whose specific mechanism for toxicity was unknown. The researchers discovered that the drug did not directly cause heart damage; instead, the metabolized byproduct produced by the liver did.

Shinya Yamanaka, a stem cell researcher at Kyoto University won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his pioneering creation of Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells.

The Future

Kamei believes that this technology is making people's and animals' lives better and healthier and can be used for investigating environmental issues and biodiversity.

He adds, “We are working on developing the organs on a chip for understanding diseases and finding potential candidates for new therapy. Within 10 years, we aim to make endangered animals on a chip to investigate their disease and find new treatments. This approach also helps us understand the difference between humans and other animals. I'm working on understanding such differences by using organs on a chip as well as genomic studies.”