Nature biomedical engineering·Mar 2026
Lab-on-a-Chip Mimics Decades of Human Aging in Just 4 Days
Key Insight
This study suggests organ-on-a-chip models could speed up testing of anti-aging therapies in human tissue.
Researchers built a tiny organ-on-a-chip using human stem cells to model how fat tissue and the liver age together. By exposing it to blood serum from older people, the chip reproduced decades' worth of aging hallmarks in just 4 days. These included DNA damage and gene expression shifts seen in actual aged tissues. The system also revealed sex-based differences in aging and how fat aging spills over to affect the liver.
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