{"id":30407,"date":"2011-11-24T09:38:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T14:38:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/?p=30407"},"modified":"2011-11-25T18:21:29","modified_gmt":"2011-11-25T23:21:29","slug":"a-first-ucf-lab-creates-cells-used-by-brain-to-control-muscle-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucf.edu\/news\/a-first-ucf-lab-creates-cells-used-by-brain-to-control-muscle-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"A First — UCF Lab Creates Cells Used by Brain to Control Muscle Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"
The success at UCF is a critical step in developing \u201chuman-on-a-chip\u201d systems. The systems are models that recreate how organs or a series of organs function in the body. Their use could accelerate medical research and drug testing, potentially delivering life-saving breakthroughs much more quickly than the typical 10-year trajectory most drugs take now to get through animal and patient trials.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese types of systems have to be developed if you ever want to get to a human-on-a-chip that recreates human function,\u201d said James Hickman, a UCF bioengineer who led the breakthrough research. \u201cIt\u2019s taken many trials over a number of years to get this to occur using human derived stem cells.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hickman\u2019s work, funded through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health, is described in the December issue of Biomaterials<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n