A University of Bath-led research effort received £500,000 to develop an organ-on-chip device that replicates connections between the brain, gut, and pancreas. The GlucoBrain project is designed to allow researchers to track how signals move between the organs and uncover why diabetes may lead to changes in memory and cognition.
Collaborators include investigators from the University of Oxford and Johns Hopkins. Their findings could pave the way for new treatments to improve the lives of millions of people affected by diabetes, dementia, or both, notes the team.
Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are two of the world’s most pressing health problems, especially in aging societies. While diabetes is widely known to affect the heart, kidneys, and eyes, growing evidence suggests it is also linked with problems in memory, learning, and brain function. However, the biological mechanisms behind this link remain poorly understood.
“Our gut, pancreas, and brain are constantly communicating via a network of signals, helping us regulate hunger and blood sugar,” says Despina Moschou, PhD, project lead. “But we still don’t fully understand how these signals interact at a cellular level and why glucose levels are linked to cognitive decline. “By creating a connected system on a chip, we can study in real time how signals travel between organs, how diabetes may impair brain function, and how new drugs could help.”
Most current knowledge on the link between diabetes and dementia comes from animal studies, simple cell cultures, and patient studies. While these are useful, they don’t fully and accurately capture all the complex interactions between our organs, hormones, and cells, points out Moschou.
Organ-on-chip technology uses living human cells in miniature devices that mimic how organs work in the body. Unlike cell cultures grown in a petri dish, these devices allow cells to grow in three dimensions, receive a controlled supply of nutrients and interact more naturally. Researchers will also be able to isolate these individual organs and cell types to understand exactly how they communicate at a molecular level.
The three-year project starts in October, bringing together engineers, clinicians, biologists and computer scientists to model the complex disease interactions. The team will first develop individual chip models for the gut, pancreas, and brain, before connecting them into a multi-organ system. They will gradually increase complexity and measure how each organ responds to glucose, hormones and different drug treatments.
Researchers from the University of Oxford will provide core clinical expertise in diabetes and metabolic disease, ensuring models are physiologically accurate. The team from Johns Hopkins University brings specialist expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and brain organoids.
GlucoBrain is a pilot project established to help researchers understand exactly how diseases like diabetes and dementia work at a deeper, biological level. This early-stage research will build the foundations for even more advanced and realistic models, bringing together more organs and cell types, explain team members. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, the devices have the potential to reveal new insights into how diseases emerge and develop.
“Not only would these devices give us an unprecedented way to study diseases, but they could help speed up drug discovery and testing, reducing reliance on animal models and making results more relevant to humans,” continues Moschou. “In the long term, they could pave the way for personalized medicine, using a patient’s own cells to identify the most effective treatment.”
The project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Health Technologies Connectivity Awards.
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