Scientists over at the University of Rochester are working with tissue-in-chip technology to find a treatment for neurological symptoms like brain fog that are associated with respiratory illness.
Tissue-in-chip technology refers to small chips with ultrathin membranes that use networks of human cells to simulate the effects of infection and treatment.
Benjamin Miller and his team are currently in the process of creating a double-tissue model which Miller said will “take a lung chip and a brain chip and connect them together.”
“(We will) infect the lung chip with flu and measure inflammation in the brain chip,” he said. “Then can we test drugs that can either prevent the inflammation in the brain or treat the inflammation in the brain.”
Miller said creating the model could take up to a year, and the drug testing could take an additional two years to do.
“Whether it's flu or any of the other viruses, we want this to be a tool that people can use to develop those drugs much more quickly than they can now,” Miller said. The findings, he added, can also help treat long-haul COVID symptoms.
The federal government awarded the university a three-year contract totaling $7.1 million to fund the experiment.
