How I Built A Human Organ From Scratch

COVID-19 had stripped away my access to laboratories. So what did I do? I built one.

Certain diseases such as multiple sclerosis and HIV can be difficult to diagnose and model. With all the medicine and pharma we have to spare, the world is still plagued by hundreds of diseases, only two of which have been globally eradicated.

That’s two diseases too little. People are suffering. Millions are dying every second of every passing day.

Fortunately, there’s hope. There’s a faster way to do things. There’s a smaller way to do things. There’s lab-on-a-chip (LOC) technology.

What is lab-on-a-chip technology?

Lab-on-a-chip. Sounds like this, right?

That is an adorable guess, but you’re wrong.

In the field of microfluidics, specifically known as droplet microfluidics, experiments such as simulating the blood brain barrier or sequencing DNA are performed at the nano-scale (single-cell or tissue level) on LOCs. Each chip is made to model a different organ or cellular environment of the human body (or other organisms).

LOCs are disposable devices made of up many components. One unique device can consist of micro-channels, circuits…