Graphical summary. Credit score: ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.4c02410
A virulent disease is on the rise: dengue, a mosquito-borne virus that already impacts hundreds of thousands and is spreading even additional attributable to local weather change. Regardless of its rising menace, dengue is tough to check in animals—and even more durable to deal with. Now, researchers at Leiden College, led by principal investigator Alireza Mashaghi, have developed a groundbreaking software: the first-ever mannequin of dengue virus illness on a chip.
This small however highly effective system mimics how the illness behaves within the human physique, opening new doorways for understanding and combating dengue. “I realized there wasn’t a single organ-on-a-chip model for dengue,” Mashaghi says. “So we decided to make one.”
Utilizing organ-on-a-chip expertise, the group recreated the situations of the dengue virus illness. This allowed them to check the illness on the mobile degree, particularly its most harmful impact: hemorrhagic shock, which might trigger extreme bleeding and organ failure. The work is printed within the journal ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering.
“We found that the mechanical properties of endothelial cells, those lining our blood vessels, change during dengue,” says Mashaghi. “This disrupts how blood vessels hold together, causing blood to leak out.”
Mashaghi explains that for a very long time, mechanics have been a lacking hyperlink in each medication and virus analysis. “Now we’re seeing how crucial it is. Mechanics help explain how diseases change the body—not just chemically, but physically too.”
This interdisciplinary strategy of mixing virology, cell biology, and bioengineering is particularly priceless in drug growth, the place prices and failure charges are excessive. A mannequin like this might assist check remedies sooner, cheaper, and extra ethically than animal research.
Why does this matter now? As a result of dengue is spreading quick. Hotter temperatures and better humidity are serving to mosquitoes attain new areas. “Dengue is one of the most rapidly spreading viral diseases in the world,” Mashaghi says. “It’s a disease of the future driven by climate change.” Every year, the virus places greater than 3.9 billion individuals in danger throughout 129 international locations. Round 96 million get sick, and 40,000 die.
The group is already engaged on the following step: modeling how dengue impacts the pores and skin—the very first organ the virus interacts with after a mosquito chew. “The skin is heavily influenced by outside temperature,” Mashaghi explains. “We want to see how changes in heat and humidity affect immune responses in the skin.”
Their objective? A skin-on-a-chip that may be uncovered to totally different local weather situations to check how immune cells behave. This might doubtlessly reveal even earlier phases of an infection, and the way local weather might alter them. “By bringing mechanics into virology, we’re pushing the field forward,” Mashaghi says. “It’s exciting to see how far we can go by combining disciplines.”
Extra info:
Huaqi Tang et al, Revealing Mechanopathology Induced by Dengue NS1 Utilizing Organ Chips and Single-Cell Pressure Spectroscopy, ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.4c02410
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Scientists create first-ever dengue-on-a-chip to check this lethal virus (2025, April 8)
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