#MEMS: "MEMS enable 'human body on a chip'"

Micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) are usually all electronic, but by adding the ability to pipe fluids around on the chip's surface allows them to emulate the interactions among our different systems--from nervous to respiratory. The new arena of bio-cicuitry can now combine living tissue functionality with electronic control, enabling human-bodies on-a-chip that speed both drug discovery and security screening: R. Colin Johnson


Human body on-a-chip hosts up to 10 interchangeable human tissue modules using microfluidics to model human responses to drugs and vaccines.

Here is what EETimes says about human bodies on-a-chip: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere have embarked on an ambitious $32 million " human body-on-a-chip" research project that will use micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) microfluidics to mimic people's reactions to substances-of-interest.

The researchers will use microfluidics to test drugs, vaccines and toxins on engineered human tissue samples housed above sensors on an integrated circuit. Funding for the project is being provided by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) and the National Institute of Health (NIH)...
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