If there is one thing that human beings know the best, it is how to constantly push their limits. The idea of unraveling whatever there is to explore in life is too attractive for us to pass upon. Hence, we are always trying to widen our horizons in one way or the other. Now, to assess the benefits of such a dynamic in absolute terms, we just have to look at all the criterions in which we are better than any of the previous generations. There are gazillion differentiators in play here, but to put things into perspective, none of them is bigger than technology. This is the case because technology didn’t just go about things as a mere luxury tool. Instead, it focused on changing us as human beings. The result was a society that had more creative thinkers and solution-oriented people than ever before. As you can guess, such a transformation had concrete benefits to offer, and what’s even better was how these benefits were staggered across an expansive spectrum, therefore giving many areas of our lives their fair stint in the sunlight. One such area that got to be an integral part of this tech revolution was the healthcare sector. Rejuvenated by a fresh identity in medtech, the sector’s success has been ceaseless since the moment it committed itself to technology. The availability of more refined methods has helped us in learning many secrets about the human body, and we have now taken another major step towards expanding our knowledge pool in regards to a particular condition.
The researching team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute has recently developed an intestine-on-a-chip device, which is essentially designed to study the effects of Covid 19 on a person’s intestines. Furthermore, the approach also attempts at gauging the long-term impact that many Covid 19 treatments bring with them. For instance, the intestine chip approach led us to a discovery that remdesivir, an FDA-approved drug for emergency use in Covid 19 cases, actually held properties to damage intestinal tissue, and all of this without reducing the infection. Built to be as big as a USB stick, the device uses same ACE2 receptor, the path used by SARS-CoV-2, to enter the cells. By recreating the process, it is able to find out the efficiency levels of different drugs and what ripple effects they are creating throughout our body.
“This study demonstrates that we can explore complex interactions between cells, pathogens, and drugs in the human intestine using our Intestine Chip as a preclinical model,” said Don Ingber, a researcher involved in the study.
While the respiratory issues triggered by Covid 19 are discussed extensively, the gastronomical issued caused by the same remain somewhat under-documented. Hence, the breakthrough by Wyss Institute gives every impression of becoming significant within the current picture and beyond.
