The project is led by Prof. John Wikswo from the Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education, together with Prof. Aaron Bowman, from the Department of Pediatrics, Biochemistry and Neurology and Prof. Kevin Ess, neurologist and director of the Department of Pediatric Neurology at the School of Medicine. For their model the researchers use a already developed micofluidic system, called NeuroVascular Unit, that simulates humans´ blood-brain barrier, which normally protects the brain from harmful influences. The second platform, I-Wire, will be used to breed human heart tissue. The two chip platforms will be linked together.

The reason for this is that the two forms of congenital epilepsy they want to examine have an influence on both brain and heart function. Congenital epilpsy forms include the complex of tuberous sclerosis and DEPDC5 associated epilepsy (1).

NCATS launched the first phase of its Tissue Chip program in 2012 to spur the development of miniaturized devices that use human tissue to closely mimic living human organs in order to study drug safety and toxicity in a faster, more effective way than current methods. The goal is to address a major problem: More than 60 percent of investigational drugs fail in human clinical trials despite promising pre-clinical studies using cell- and animal-based research models.

The second phase of the program focuses on development of specific disease models using normal and diseased patient cells in the organ-on-chip platforms and then using these models to test drug efficacy.

Source and further information:
https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2017/09/20/goal-of-new-tissue-chip-research-is-to-assess-efficacy-of-novel-epilepsy-drugs/

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK385626/