It doesn’t look like an organ: a small chip, barely larger than a microscope slide, with tiny cavities, tanks and fine tubes. For example, cells from the human intestinal mucosa, lung alveoli or liver cells grow in the cavities – there are also immune cells in them. Fluid like blood circulates in the body through the small channels. This is how living mini models of human organs are created in the laboratory.
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“With our biochips we can recreate infections and the associated inflammatory and immune processes in a controlled manner,” says Alexander Mosig. The 49-year-old biochemist and molecular biologist has had the newly set up this month Professorship for Animal Experiment Substitute Methods in infection and inflammation research Jena University Hospital (UKJ) other.
From Jena University Hospital to the start-up Dynamic 42
This line of research has a clear goal: avoid animal testing wherever possible – and at the same time create more precise models for humans. “Many questions have so far been investigated in animal models because we lack suitable alternatives,” says Mosig. “But in the interest of the patients, we want to recreate human disease processes in the laboratory as realistically as possible. This is the only way we can better understand disease mechanisms and predict the effects of medications on an individual basis.”
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In his chip models, Mosig and his team investigate, among other things, molecular processes in pneumonia or intestinal diseases that are caused by viruses, bacteria or fungi. He is particularly interested in how microorganisms interact with humans and how the microbiome influences the immune system during infections and inflammations. The microfluidic chips developed by his research group are now patent protected. The Jena start-up Dynamic 42which emerged from his working group, makes the technology accessible to research and industry as a standardized system.
Reduce the number of animal experiments
After studying in Jena, Alexander Mosig received his doctorate on immune processes in arteriosclerosis and led several projects in the Center for Sepsis and Sepsis Consequences at the UKJ. He has received several awards for his research on chip models, for example the Thuringian and the Federal Animal Welfare Research Award. It is said that he turned down an offer for a professorship at the University Hospital Hamburg-Eppendorf in favor of the professorship in Jena.
In the future, Alexander Mosig would like to help at the University Hospital 3R research to expand further. 3R stands for “Replace, Reduce, Refine” with the aim of reducing the number of animal experiments and limiting the suffering of laboratory animals to the lowest possible level.
