Polish breeding of artificial organs on which new drugs and oncological therapies will be tested without any experiments on humans or animals? Yes it is possible! Maciek Mańka, a student of the Academic Complex of General Schools in Chorzów, proved just that.
Agnieszka Sztyler-Turovsky: Maciek, apparently you can grow a human lung at home ?!
Maciej Mańka: It’s not like that! (laughs) I made a chip – a device in which you can grow a cell, but from a cheap, common polymer, without the use of 3D printers. In fact, I just improved or colloquially “missed” what the Harvard scientists who in 2010 they have grown a “chip lung”, the world’s first artificial organ.
And maybe you also did it in your high school chemistry class ?!
No (laughs)! I study in a great high school where anyone can “extend” any subjects and I chose chemistry, mathematics, biology and English as a lecturer. But the experiment with the chip happened during the Research and Development Internship E (x) plory at the Jagiellonian University. At Dr Jakub Rysz, from the Laboratory of Macromolecular Nanolayers.
Did you get into medical and scientific experiments already in your childhood? There are such traditions in the family, are you the first?
I’m first. Nobody in the family dealt with medicine, which I associate my future with. A year and a half ago in The Science World, I came across an article about this experiment at Harvard. When recently, as a finalist of the E (x) plory competition, as one of fifteen students in Poland, I was able to get an internship at the Jagiellonian University and wanted to conduct this experiment, it turned out that there are no 3D printers in Krakow that would be able to make a chip created at Harvard. Then I came up with another, simple method that uses machines located in many laboratories in Poland. This technology involves the use of this polymer in a way that goes far beyond the scheme, so I was very surprised by the staff of the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science of the Jagiellonian University.
For scientists – a bomb! And what does this technology mean for ordinary people?
We can test the action of bacteria, viruses, and even the most microscopic particles, e.g. those found in the air, on it, check whether they affect the human lungs, whether they cross the air-blood barrier and penetrate the bloodstream. In this way, we can test the effects of each drug without experimenting on animals.
Neither on people. Can your experiment help, for example, a patient with lung cancer to choose the so-called? targeted chemistry? Today, it is often proven by trial and error.
Yes. For example, we can take cells from a sick person and grow them on a chip, creating an artificial microorganism that will react in the same way as the patient’s alveoli. And then test it to see how the drug would work for that particular person. It is indeed the future of the so-called personalized therapies, especially for patients with lung cancer, or even cystic fibrosis, which affects the alveoli. However, the truth is that the future is in the treatment of many other diseases, and the possibilities are virtually endless.
Are you already looking for investors? Today, when you presented your chip at the “Investing in Medical Innovations” congress in Katowice, there were any people willing to finance its production?
I want to interest Polish science with my chip, and to promote this technology as widely as possible. Find universities as well as biotech companies interest in large-scale production. Because I was able to prove that we can do the same things as the scientists at Harvard, but cheaply. Harvard technology is very young, in Europe it is only just beginning to be used in the Netherlands and Switzerland. It has not been known in Poland so far. Only one material is needed to manufacture my device – a polymer, so Poland may become a pioneer in growing artificial organs identical to humans and in developing drugs for patients all over the world.
What else could the future of your technology be like? Growing any organ, even a human brain ?!
In America, it has already been possible to grow an intestine on a chip, work is underway on the vein and the heart. The brain will be the hardest. I think the most important thing is to understand the potential of organs-on-chips. It is a great tool at your fingertips that will give you test results identical to those achieved in human tests. Completely safe and relatively cheap to produce technology, in my opinion, it should start to be widely used and improved by Poles. And this is my greatest goal – to present and convince Poland to use organs-on-chips.