Lessons from past malpractice<\/h3>\n
Without effective peer review, it\u2019s easy to imagine dietary supplement manufacturers, for example, marketing the next snake oil based on staged microfluidics studies. In the United States, so long as the manufacturer does not explicitly claim its products cure disease<\/a>, FDA regulation is not much of a barrier. This could practically pave the way for misleading advertisements: \u201cDo you get TIRED at night? Our HUMAN-ON-A-CHIP studies PROVE this supplement is RIGHT FOR YOU!\u201d The only thing protecting the consumer from deception, in this case, is peer review.<\/p>\n FDA White Oak Campus. Credit: Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n Unfortunately, deceptive marketing is not just a malevolent step-child of promising research, it is indelibly bound at the hip. Look no further than \u201cstem cells\u201d for proof. Stem cells can be pluripotent, meaning they can give rise to nearly any type of cell in the body. Their discovery has had a monumental impact on the future of regenerative medicine. But even before scientists devised a method to make pluripotent stem cells more ethical and accessible, this buzzword carried connotations of \u201cmiracle cells.\u201d<\/p>\n Fast-forward to 2018, and the FDA has had to crack down on so-called \u201cstem cell clinics\u201d that endanger patients with elective stem cell injections for various ailments. Aside from being risky, these cell-therapy procedures are unproven\u2014the cells used are often extracted from the patient\u2019s fat and are not even pluripotent. This business model works well enough to warrant FDA involvement, but not well enough to prevent patient harm<\/a>. These clinics ride the coattails of legitimate stem cell research and profit from the power of a buzzword. Unfortunately, consumer and patient exploitation are inevitably tied to commercialization, and it is fair to say that no accessible technologies\u2014especially groundbreaking ones\u2014are immune.<\/p>\n Organ-on-a-chip technology has become drastically more accessible. Two years ago, I had zero experience with microfluidic or biological research. Today, I spend the majority of my time designing organ-on-a-chip devices and experiments. The barrier for entry is low\u2014I could plan a simple experiment and successfully grow human cells on a chip. But without the scientific expertise and integrity of the women and men around me, drawing worthwhile and reproducible<\/em> conclusions that hold up against peer review would be infeasible. The danger with buzzwords is that they can only be policed by public caution and skepticism. As this technology becomes more popular, the scientific community should emphasize peer review and regulation in all of its applications.<\/p>\n All of this is not to say that organ-on-a-chip commercialization is anything short of revolutionary and, well\u2026good. Patients stand to benefit tremendously from new treatments and fundamental knowledge. Hesperos<\/a> and Emulate<\/a>, two commercial pioneers of the field have numerous collaborations in the healthcare industry. Hesperos provides a platform to accelerate drug development, and Emulate hopes to break new ground in personalized medicine with their \u201cpatient-on-a-chip\u201d initiative. Organ-on-a-chip technology has also played a role in advancing novel treatment methods. Recently, researchers at Harvard\u2019s Wyss Institute developed a chip that allowed accurate modeling of a portion of the human kidney using pluripotent stem cells. This work opens doors for repairing damaged kidneys\u2014offering a legitimate stem cell therapy.<\/p>\n Because these are cases of medical and pharmaceutical research, peer review and regulation (in the form of double-blind studies) will have the ultimate say. The elective consumer space is more of a gray area. Fortunately, we have an opportunity to treat it with comparable scientific rigor. The FDA could one day choose to mandate using organ-on-a-chip devices for safety testing of dietary supplements. Microfluidic experiments are significantly cheaper than animal or human trials, and this may make evidenced-based policy more feasible. We could also one day request the use of organ-on-a-chip platforms to validate risky cell-therapy procedures before <\/em>experimenting on live patients. If we don\u2019t lose sight of peer review and regulation as governors of science, we can validate market claims to benefit the consumer. Reliable public scientific data, in a space where not much exists, allows us to address the credibility of lofty claims rather than to leave them unchecked.<\/p>\n There is an undeniable magnetism inherent to buzzwords. They attract media attention and research funding, but also opportunists, hucksters, and charlatans. To this point, we have had to take the bad with the good.\u00a0 Fortunately, we can learn from ongoing malpractice and arm ourselves with the most impenetrable shield in a scientifically literate society: skepticism.<\/p>\n Featured image credit: NCATS<\/em><\/p>\n Enjoyed this article? Don\u2019t forget to share.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n![\"FDA](\"https:\/\/ufluidix.com\/circle\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/fda-building-1024x754.jpg\")
<\/a>Some room for optimism<\/h3>\n