By Brianne Hogan / Source: Ecorazzi

The Design Museum in London has chosen its Best Design of the Year: a chip that replaces animal test subjects with a complex package of human cells.

The life-saving chip, which is actually called lung-on-a-chip because that’s what it actually is, was designed at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. The simple-looking piece of plastic contains complex human cells, arranged in a simplified version of the way a lung works. It even breathes like you would!

The Wyss scientists explained that they can do lots of things with these chips, like introduce bacteria to the channels to mimic an infection, or introduce the chemicals you breathe in regularly to mimic air pollution and its affect on your lungs. They can even test new medications.

The best news, however, is that this new design can ultimately end the cruel practice of animal testing while helping human patients.

“Bio-inspired micro-devices that mimic whole human organs, such as the lung on a chip, could potentially replace animal testing and bring new therapies to patients faster and at lower cost in the future,” the design team explains in their video.

Wyss’ ultimate goal is to build ten different organs and link them to create a whole body.

It seems that designing isn’t just for making the world look better, but changing it for the better, too.

Read more @ Ecorazzi