Humans-on-a-chip? Whaaaa'??

[Ace]

Just check out this fantastic TEDx Talk about this group of scientists who are creating these little "homes" for cells for safe and more effective drug testing (among the many other uses that this technology will have).

It's relatively easy to imagine a new medicine, a better cure for some disease. The hard part, though, is testing it, and that can delay promising new cures for years. In this well-explained talk, Geraldine Hamilton shows how her lab creates organs and body parts on a chip, simple structures with all the pieces essential to testing new medications — even custom cures for one specific person. (Filmed at TEDxBoston)

You can check out the video on YouTube here!

But, like, wow, can we talk about how cool this is?

[Noxid]

But the real question:
Are the chips ruffled?

But nah actually this is pretty cool. I don't know enough about biomed to have anything smart to say about it, but I'm impressed. It seems like such a simple design but I would never have thought of doing that.

[TeenageAngst]

TEDx talks are not TED talks. One is done by specifically chosed industry-leading professionals and academics on incredibly important subjects, the other is done by some assholes in a university conference hall.

[Ace]

TEDx talks are not TED talks. One is done by specifically chosed industry-leading professionals and academics on incredibly important subjects, the other is done by some assholes in a university conference hall.

I'm pretty sure TED still has pretty strict guidelines for anyone who gets a license to set up a TEDx event. Aside from that, can you add anything constructive to the actual content of the talk instead of just calling them assholes cos it's not the 'official' brand or whatever?

In any case, I updated the original post as to not add any confusion.

[TeenageAngst]

Considering some of the crap I've heard in TEDx talks I'd say you'd have to back that up. As for the actual topic this isn't that mindblowing. It's basically just a better form of a petri dish. How I understand our current issues with drugs, it's not so much not having proper models so much as we don't have proper techniques for delivering medications where they're needed in the body. We need to be able to affect the brain or the central nervous system for instance and those require extremely specialized delivery systems.

[Ace]

Considering some of the crap I've heard in TEDx talks I'd say you'd have to back that up.

Fair enough, I guess. I can't say I've seen enough of them to make a case for them, nor do I have a desire to. It's the generalization that all TEDx talks are organized by assholes just rubs me the wrong way. I'm sure there are some really stupid ones, but I've never seen issue with the particular ones I've seen. Can't account for taste, I guess. *shrugs*

As for the actual topic this isn't that mindblowing. It's basically just a better form of a petri dish. How I understand our current issues with drugs, it's not so much not having proper models so much as we don't have proper techniques for delivering medications where they're needed in the body. We need to be able to affect the brain or the central nervous system for instance and those require extremely specialized delivery systems.

Yeah. A better petri dish...which is awesome! Perhaps this sort of thing excites me more than most people, but any potential medical advancement is something to be happy about.