Researchers create functioning human lung on a microchip
By Laura June 
posted June 28th 2010 9:42AM
posted June 28th 2010 9:42AM
Researchers at Harvard University have successfully created a functioning, respirating human 'lung' on a chip in a lab. Made using human and blood vessel cells and a microchip, the translucent lung is far simpler in terms of observation than traditional, actual human lungs (for obvious reasons), in a small convenient package about the size of a pencil eraser. The researchers have demonstrated its effectiveness and are now moving toward showing its ability to replicate gas exchange between lung cells and the bloodstream. Down the road a bit more, the team hopes to produce other organs on chips, and hook them all up to the already operational heart on a chip. And somewhere in the world, Margaret Atwood and her pigoons are rejoicing, right? Here's to the future. Video description of the device is below.
Yeah, that's just nuts
Yeah, that's not a headline I ever expected to read. Ever.
@KarlW : Four Words: Scary, Freaking Awesome Amazing!
@KarlW Nuts? It's inevitable.
Massive kudos to Engadget for referencing such an amazing writer as Atwood. She says in interviews that when she's writing her dystopias, she's only actually writing about things humans have already done or are currently doing - this article is a good example...
And one step closer to the return of the reapers.
@CaryHiroyuki Tagawa
You picked up Mass Effect cheap a few days ago too?
@goolump
No. I just remember a lot of lines from these games. I got it a couple months after it first came out.
@CaryHiroyuki Tagawa I love Mass Effect. Sale on ME2 at Amazon!
Welcome to the new LEGO. Now with functioning organs! Match or mismatch the included body parts to build your own living creature!
Crazyyy
Wow science!
Someone should be passing out cigars after an announcement like that!
OMG!!!!
Awesome, but creepy.
Issac Asimov was right again...
Very useful if your patient is 2" tall.
Now make them "breathe" GHGs and reject Oxygen and we will be one step closer to the the air generators on Coruscant :)
I think I read somewhere their research is funded by a company calleed Skynet
brb i'm gonna buy my first cigarette
@brrip
LMAO, as I was reading this I was wonder if Phillip Morris had a hand in this
Anybody thinking penis on a chip?
no
No, in that you already have enough insecurity, that's what she said, blah blah, grow up.
What I AM thinking, though, is that I could smoke all I want if they turned this into a first stage lung for your body that took care of the bad stuff. Replaceable lung filters!
@Eli Haj No, its just this would be an upgrade for him.
Thank you. Thank you I'm here all week.
@rei234 nope - you having problems down there?
Lung on a chip. And I thought system on a chip was cool...
@balwheeler The REAL systems-on-chips are gonna be a lot scarier, I think.
I registered just to say bless you for knowing Oryx and Crake. That made me smile.
'Why is my computer so slow?'
'I'm afraid it has asthma'
You mean there replicating us, copying our DNA...
Real life cybernetic.. things... are far less frightening than their hollywood counterparts.
At least for now.
Where are the glowy red eyes? This terminator sucks.
Whats next a functioning microchip on a human lung?
What are the practical implications of this?
@TheLeprachaun
To show that we can kick nature's ass! Duh...
So how can they guarantee the cells they picked* fall into the fat part of the bell curve of typical human responses to their various tests?
* - And what was the cell selection process based on?
Wonder if they worked around the scar tissue problem
Penis on a chip? What good is that?
lung on a chip sounds like something you'd eat in a third world country
I don't get it. What does the microchip do? :-S
I FOR ONE BOWS DOWN TO OUR NEW CYBERNETIC ANDROID OVERLORDS !!