A University of Bath-led project has secured £500,000 to develop the first-ever ‘organ-on-a-chip’ device that recreates the connection between the brain, gut and pancreas. The GlucoBrain project will allow researchers to track how signals travel between organs and understand why diabetes leads to changes in memory and cognition.
The research is being led by the world’s leading experts in lab-on-a-chip technology at the University of Bath, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and Johns Hopkins University. Their findings could pave the way to new treatments that improve the lives of millions of people suffering from diabetes, dementia, or both.
Diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease are two of the most pressing health problems in the world, especially in aging populations. It is widely known that diabetes affects the heart, kidneys, and eyes, but increasing evidence suggests that it is also associated with problems with memory, learning, and brain function. However, the biological mechanisms behind this association are still poorly understood.
“Our gut, pancreas and brain are constantly communicating through a network of signals that help regulate hunger and blood sugar levels,” said Dr. Despina Mosieux, director of the project. “However, we still don’t fully understand how these signals interact at the cellular level and why blood sugar levels are associated with cognitive decline.”
By creating connected systems on chips, researchers can study in real time how signals travel between organs, how diabetes impairs brain function, and how new drugs can help. ”
Dr Despina Moschou, University of Bath
Construction of multi-organ model
Current knowledge about the link between diabetes and dementia comes from animal studies, simple cell cultures, and patient studies. Although these are useful, they do not fully and accurately capture all the complex interactions between our organs, hormones, and cells.
Organ-on-a-chip technology uses living human cells in small devices that mimic the workings of organs in the body. Unlike cell cultures grown in Petri dishes, these devices allow cells to grow in three dimensions, receive a controlled supply of nutrients, and interact more naturally. For the first time, researchers will also be able to isolate these individual organs and cell types to understand exactly how they communicate at the molecular level.
The three-year project will begin in October and will bring together engineers, clinicians, biologists and computer scientists to model complex disease interactions. The research team will first develop separate chip models of the intestines, pancreas and brain, then connect them to a multi-organ system. The research will gradually increase in complexity and will measure how each organ responds to glucose, hormones, and various drug treatments.
Researchers at the University of Oxford will provide core clinical expertise in diabetes and metabolic diseases, ensuring the model is physiologically accurate. The Johns Hopkins team brings expertise in Alzheimer’s disease and brain organoids.
Unleash your future potential
GlucoBrain is a pilot project that will help researchers understand exactly how diseases like diabetes and dementia work at a deeper biological level. This early-stage research will lay the foundation for even more advanced and realistic models that combine more organs and cell types. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, the device has the potential to reveal new insights into how diseases originate and develop.
Dr. Moshu continued, “These devices not only provide an unprecedented way to study diseases, they could help speed up drug discovery and testing, reduce reliance on animal models, and make results more relevant to humans. In the long term, they could pave the way for personalized medicine, which uses a patient’s own cells to identify the most effective treatments.”
This project is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Health Technologies Connectivity Awards.
