Aug 22 – Prof Yakov Nahmias’s human-on-a-chip platform has the unique ability to predict risk of toxicity in pharma and cosmetic product candidates without animal testing.

The technology was spun off from the university into a Jerusalem based start up Tissue Dynamics to provide toxicology analysis of drugs and cosmetics. L’Oréal was Tissue Dynamics’ first customer in October 2016. Major brands such as Unilever are expected to follow suit as they seek alternative models to evaluate new products now that European laws prohibit cosmetics makers from animal testing. Tissue Dynamics can be seen at https://www.tissuedynamics.com/

Tissue Dynamics’ liver-on-a-chip – as well as heart and brain chips coming soon – could greatly reduce the number of animal tests, the amount of time for drug evaluation and the astronomical cost of drug development. Not to mention the billions that pharma companies pay in damages when a drug proves harmful.

As a young faculty member at Harvard Medical School in 2009, Prof Yakov Nahmias built the technology for one of the first human-on-a-chip companies, HuREL. So he is confident that Tissue Dynamics — the first human-on-a-chip company in Israel and one of few in the world — can do what none of the others can do.

For more information, see: https://www.israel21c.org/astounding-drug-testing-tech-simulates-liver-heart-brain/